North andover dry cleaners
ASK DFW
2016.04.06 15:41 spargonaut ASK DFW
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2023.03.25 11:01 iacxx Is anyone else a bit worried over the lack of water?
I'm not too sure how it is in other counties, but in North Yorkshire reservoir levels are still fairly low compared to what they should be. I was walking across a farm the other day and the ground was so dry it was cracking.
It seems the gov website has reports on it, summarising that rivers and reservoir levels are lower than they should be and its not projected to get any better.
I think we may have a very dry summer with an unsettling little amount of water. Time to panic buy water butts!
submitted by iacxx to CasualUK [link] [comments]
It seems the gov website has reports on it, summarising that rivers and reservoir levels are lower than they should be and its not projected to get any better.
I think we may have a very dry summer with an unsettling little amount of water. Time to panic buy water butts!
2023.03.25 06:58 savapabisbubyla QC on Jordan 4 Pine Green
 | submitted by savapabisbubyla to sneakerreps [link] [comments] |
2023.03.25 05:01 Harbinger_51 I do a job for the government none of you know about. You should.
It was a beautiful day in the fall, and though being in the middle of nowhere in Ohio isn’t exactly my ideal setting for an assignment, it could have been worse. Opening my windows, listening to music, and getting a good whiff of country air is a nice contrast to being cooped up in cities like I’m used to. The sight of brown stalks of corn populating the miles of fields along the road was welcome, as was the cool and clean smell of the air. It’s a good thing these jobs don’t involve much interaction with people. Unfortunately, some level of interaction is inevitable.
On my way to this one, I got a speeding ticket from a cop at some little local department. Though I was, in fact, speeding, I got the feeling that he also didn’t so much like seeing a fed in his neck of the woods. The local police aren’t a fan of us, so I’ve come to learn. They tend to get suspicious of us, thinking we’re up to some top-secret mission behind their backs. I guess they would be right.
I kept driving down the gravel road until the navigation let me know my destination was coming up on the right. Turning down the radio as I approached, I glanced toward the empty fields and the woods that met them beyond. I then turned into the long dirt driveway leading to our civilians’ house and garage.
I rolled up and parked with my trunk facing the porch. Stepping out, I got another whiff of the fresh country air and looked at the area of operations that lay before me. I was surprised at the amount of land and space that I had at my disposal. Space is good for these jobs. Additionally, I was informed that there weren’t any neighbors close enough to worry about. I couldn’t have asked for a better setting.
After stretching and letting out a light sigh, I decided it was time to get to work. I pulled the keychain out of my pocket and unlocked the front door. It seemed like a nice enough place. It was certainly nothing worth complaining about given the conditions of houses I’ve faced in my previous assignments. I went back outside to my massive, government-issued vehicle and opened the trunk.
I pulled the first couple of duffel bags worth of equipment out and brought them inside. The kitchen was as good a place as any to set up. After making five or six trips of dragging heavy bags and boxes of my junk into the house, I went back outside to open the garage. Thank God we were able to catch this case early and the civilians were able to make it out in time. It also meant I got room in the garage to park this thing. All that remained in the truck was the large metallic box, but I wasn’t going to need that until later.
I shut the trunk and pulled my vehicle into the garage, closing it on my way out. I stepped back into the house where I changed from my suit to my gear. Wearing the suit all day annoys me but I suppose the higher-ups want us to look like good, “friendly” feds to the public. The public has no idea the kind of monsters we are.
I unpacked box after box of equipment and weapons. I loaded up my Glock 17 with its extended 30-round magazine just as I did with my standard .556 rifle. I checked the laser sights on both. All good. Next was my favorite, the.338 with the best scope you could ever ask for. It sure is nice having a virtually infinite budget. Perks of working for the US federal government I suppose. The final firearm I brought was my personal .357 magnum revolver that I kept holstered on my chest. I figure it’s never a bad idea to have one more gun, just in case. Maybe I should have brought more on this one. If things got too close, I always had my hunting knife. I sharpened it that morning before heading out.
The next few hours consisted of me going out into the woods near the house in various places and setting up dozens of my little cameras equipped with motion sensors. They were there to give me an idea of the location of anything that got brave enough to get close to the fields that surrounded the house, I would be able to know about anything that was coming to me. I didn’t take too much caution in setting them up. Things never get interesting until nightfall.
I returned to the house where I turned on my laptop and assured that all the cameras were connected and working. I could see every single one of them from there and would know if anything so much as moved. I then got situated on a chair by the kitchen table, where I opened the window and set up my .338 rifle to watch the fields with.
I suppose it would be worth mentioning why I’m out here, setting up fancy equipment in the woods and loading up an arsenal of guns while I’m alone in a farmhouse that isn’t mine. Let’s back it up.
March 1st, 2017, 3:33 am, Iowa
Dispatch gets a call from a local farmer. He claims to be looking at a figure standing still at the edge of a treeline on his property. The description given by the farmer was that of a man of average stature and build, clothed in a loose black or grey shirt and trousers and a large-brimmed hat.
The farmer tells dispatch that he had awoken abruptly roughly an hour earlier, unspecified as to why. He spotted the figure outside his kitchen window soon after. The figure had been standing near the edge of a row of trees. It was facing the house and hadn’t moved a muscle since the farmer noticed him. The farmer quickly retrieved his rifle and walked out onto his lawn, proceeding to brandish his firearm and tell the trespasser that this property was his and to leave immediately. The farmer, seeing that the man remained unthreatened by his warning and display of a firearm, retreaded back into his home to retrieve his phone and call 9-1-1 as he continued to watch the figure from his porch.
During this call, the farmer’s voice was noticeably nervous and frightened. The desperate tone and quivering speech continued to worsen as he went on explaining the situation to dispatch. Dispatch instructed the farmer to remain where he stood and not to approach the trespasser. Dispatch reassured the farmer that the police were on their way. A few quiet and uneventful minutes passed. Then, without warning, the farmer let out a horrified scream through the phone. The call was disconnected seconds later.
The police began their over 40-minute drive to the residence. Halfway to their arrival, multiple new calls were coming to dispatch from the farmer’s neighbors. They reported seeing a large stack of smoke coming from the farmer’s home, and the closest reported seeing the house on fire.
By the time police arrived, the house had burned to the ground. The fire department arrived shortly after but oddly enough, the fire had completely subsided. What remained was the charred crumbs of what was once a house. The firefighters that arrived on site were bewildered by how quickly the fire must have burned the house. There was no explanation they could fathom.
The police searched the nearby fields and woods for the farmer and alleged trespasser to no avail, however, their search was quickly called back upon the findings of the firefighters in the house. The man’s charred bones were found beneath the rubble but not as they should have been. It became clear after further investigation that the man’s limbs were ripped from his body before it was incinerated at an impossible speed. 4 .308 bullet casings were found where the porch of the house used to be. The rifle was found just outside of the house, unscathed despite its proximity to such a violent fire. Forensics confirmed that the rifle had fired these casings but the bullets themselves were never found.
This was the first, but far from the last.
October 28th, 2017, 11:07 pm, Montana
Dispatch gets a call from a rancher who spotted a woman in an old-fashioned black and white dress and wearing a linen cap. The rancher claimed the woman was standing amongst his cattle and not moving. The rancher expressed no panic or concern for his safety over the phone, but rather a concern for the woman in the field. The rancher also noted that his cattle kept their distance around the woman.
An ambulance arrived at 11:29. Paramedics found no trace of the alleged woman. They walked to the entrance of the rancher’s house and discovered his door to be unlocked and open. After calling for the rancher and getting no response, they stepped inside to be greeted by the corpse of the rancher, hanging from a noose in his stairwell. The man had no history of mental illness and none of his relatives or acquaintances had any reason to believe he was suicidal. Additionally, an autopsy report concluded that both arms were broken in multiple places as well as every finger as if they had been crumpled together by a great force. He could not have tied the noose himself.
November 29th, 2018, 2:06 am, Wisconsin
Dispatch gets a call from another farmer. He had spotted a woman in an old black and white dress and linen cap. The woman had been standing in the long driveway from the road to his house, lit by the lamp that covered it. She stood motionless in the cold, windy, and heavily snowing weather. The farmer and his wife were later found under a collapsed wall of their crumpled house with stones placed on top. They had been placed in a seemingly orderly fashion until there was enough weight to crush their bones.
This happens to be the first incident we have on record with photo evidence. A trail cam owned by the farmer and his wife a few acres away from the house caught a picture the night of the incident. It caught a picture of the woman exactly as the farmer had described. Black and white dress, white linen camp. It looked as though she had stepped through time from hundreds of years before and placed like a mannequin in front of the camera.
May 30th, 2019, Minnesota
September 3rd, 2019, Nebraska
January 4th, 2020, South Dakota
I could go on but the point is that these incidents have been happening more and more frequently and they aren’t stopping. We do know what they are, or at least what they’re supposed to represent to us.
Every single one of these “people” lived in North America during the witch trials. We don’t believe they were the ones who were executed. We believe they were the ones who made the accusations, the ones who got their neighbors killed, the ones who carried out the executions and now they’re back to kill again.
Luckily, my department picked up on these patterns early on and designated a team to deal with them. There are a few hundred of us. I am in the dark about what everyone does exactly. I haven’t met many but I do know that some find potential incidents, some investigate, some deal with the cover-up and handling the publicity, and then, of course, there are the ones you send in to eradicate the problem. That’s where I come in.
I am here to hunt them down, to put them back in their graves so it would seem. Sometimes I get here before they’ve claimed a victim, sometimes after. But their reign of terror comes to an end with me. They’ve never gotten away from me, and I have never failed an assignment. I didn’t plan on this night being any different.
A beep sounded from my laptop screen as an outline from one of the cameras lit up, indicating that the motion sensor detected movement. It had been quiet since I set it up, there was not even the slightest sign of wildlife. No deer, no squirrels, nothing. I leaned forward and intently examined the camera that had been triggered. There was nothing to see. Another sensor triggered. Again, the camera showed nothing. My eyes darted from camera to camera, looking for motion. Another camera triggered, though all that I caught sight of was a shaking tree branch. There was no wind today. Another. This time I saw it. A dog-looking figure darted across the camera in only a few frames, but I knew it was no dog.
I turned my attention from the cameras to the field in front of me, where the movement had come from. I got behind my rifle and looked down the scope to the treeline in the distance. My heart began to pound in my chest at an intense tempo.
I could feel the adrenaline kicking in while I scanned the edge of the field for movement. All that greeted me was the orange glint of the setting sun on the treeline and the tiny shadows of the little stumps of corn stalks in the otherwise empty field. It was silent. Not even a wind accompanied me this evening, though I can’t complain. It’s better for shooting.
For a few minutes, I continued to run my scope along the treeline, occasionally getting a peek with my own eyes. It was during one of these peeks when I noticed a color out of place, in between a couple of trees on the other side of the field—some sort of black-and-white spec that was there not a second before. I lowered my head down, back behind the scope, and centered it. As I steadied the scope, a man-like figure standing at the edge of the field came into focus.
It wore black, tattered rags of clothing that hung loosely on its rigid frame. It stood still, stiff as a board. Its eyes were fixed on something ahead of it. It took me a moment to realize it was focused on me. It didn’t move a muscle, not even blinking as it stared.
I came to my senses and prepared to do my job. I flipped the safety off of my rifle and centered my crosshairs on its chest. I began to breathe deeply, my finger on the trigger, ready to pull but I didn’t take the shot, not yet. I saw it start to move.
Even with the distance between us, my scope made the picture of this figure clear as day. The movement came from only one part of its body; its mouth. First, its crusty lips detached from one another and the mouth began to open. Steadily, it opened more, and more all the while the rest of its body and head remained fixed. Its jaw sank to what should have been all the more it could, but it didn’t stop. It fell further, dipping down below its chest, its skin like a stretched rubber band waiting to snap, though it didn’t, it kept stretching.
Still stiff as a board, the man-like thing remained with its eyes locked on me while its mouth sat open, impossibly wide. It stood still with its hanging jaw for a moment, a moment I shouldn’t have given it. Now I knew I had my target. I began to apply pressure to the trigger before I was stopped, shaken by a force.
A scream, like a choir of souls in despair being dragged off to hell, with the power of a thousand horns sounding the start of a medieval battle rung through the fields. Its volume caused flocks of birds in the nearby trees to fly away in a panic, its bass shuddered through my chest and left me too hypnotized to pull the trigger. I’ll never get used to hearing one of them scream.
“Here we go”
I muttered to myself, the only thought I could conjure from my brain at the moment.
Closing its mouth, it leaped forward and reached for the ground in front of it with its hands fixed like claws. As soon as they met the ground, the feet followed and planted themselves quickly so that it could boost itself forward once again. It had begun its terrible charge. All the while, its face remained fixed on me, rotting teeth exposed and clenched in rage. The speed at which it rushed across the empty field would make a deer running for its life look lazy in comparison, but I was the prey here.
Though my heart began to race at the sight of this abomination barreling toward me, this anomaly of hatred and hunger bound to flesh, I remained calm. I began to steady my breathing, taking control of each breath, in and out.
Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
Squeeze.
The crack of the shot rang out through the dimming sky and the field before me, my response to its enraged scream. I remained fixed on the target, observing the spatter of blood as it shot from its back. It began to scream again, this time rapidly and desperate in tone. I quickly moved the bolt and chambered the next round, accompanied by the soft ring of the brass bouncing on the floorboards under my chair.
Although I managed to land a clean shot to the chest, it didn’t do much. It kept running, keeping on at its same speed. Though now it changed its direction and was running adjacent to my position in the house. It was trying to flank me. It wanted to find a way around my line of sight. I couldn’t let it.
Again, I took control of my breathing. Slowly, I drifted my rifle on the bipod until the creature came back into view. Its limbs pounded at the ground with speed and power as it propelled itself across the field. I’ll never get used to seeing one run either.
Starting behind it, I continued to move the scope, just fast enough to begin gaining on him, just fast enough to let the crosshairs catch up. Inhale. Exhale. The crosshairs slowly began to overtake it. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze.
I chambered the next round quickly. This shot brought him to the ground, but it didn’t keep him there. After a short tumble, it rose and began to run again, this time back towards the woods it came from. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze.
The third shot grazed its back. Frustrated, I chambered another round and took aim, but it was far too late. Before I could even begin to line up my fourth shot, it had taken one final leap from the field back into the treeline it came from.
I let out a sigh and hung my head in disappointment. I knew what I had to do next but I sure as hell didn’t want to. The last flickers of sunlight shone through the open window and lit my .338 rifle as I reloaded the magazine. I sat and stared blankly at the screen in front of me, hoping a camera would pick up some sort of movement that could clue me into wherever it ran off to. Knowing my luck, I shouldn’t have expected it to.
After coming to terms with reality, I stood up and grabbed my .556, slinging it around my body and letting it hang in front of me. I aimed it down, looking through its sight and testing its laser again before checking the chamber. Good to go. Next, I adjusted the night vision set to my head before picking up my .338 and heading for the door. As I stepped outside, I let out another sigh, this one of stress. Hunting these things at night, on their own turf is never as fun, nor as easy as finishing them quickly from a distance but what choice did I have? I just wanted to get it over with.
I flipped down my goggles and switched them on, illuminating the dark field in green and white. I began my long walk across. It took me longer than expected. The speed of that monstrosity caused me to underestimate the size of the field. Each step I took was slow and quiet. I didn’t want the crunch of my feet meeting the dirt and remnants of corn stalks to disturb my hearing. If that thing made a noise, I needed to hear it. If only I could have quieted my incessant heavy, nervous breathing too.
I was not even halfway to the treeline when I reached the first pool of blood, where I had shot it for the second time, and it decided to retreat. Bits of flesh were scattered about the ground, but I didn’t care to stop and look. Instead, I focussed on the blood I could see that led back into the woods.
Any experienced hunter has had to track a deer or two. It can be very frustrating. The trail isn’t always so clear, and you never know how far it has gotten. In my case, I knew this thing was still alive, and it was angry.
I continued my walk, splitting my attention between the blood trail on the ground and the treeline in front of me, scanning for movement and listening. If I was lucky enough, it would have gotten bold and tried to take me down in the field. Unfortunately, I’m not so lucky. Silently, I followed the trail until it met the woods. I stopped walking and calmed myself.
I didn’t want to go past those damn trees, but there was no avoiding it. I had a job to do. I extended the bipod of my .338 and lowered it to the ground before raising the stock of my other rifle to my shoulder. I took a deep breath and resumed my walk, now even slower and more cautious. At least now my heavy breathing would be drowned out by the sound of snapping twigs beneath my feet.
Immediately upon entering the woods, I spotted the next sight of blood. It came from a tree branch, its leaves covered in the dripping crimson liquid. I walked up to observe, only to notice more blood on the branch above that one. And the next. I noticed the pattern and followed each branch up, one by one, each with its leaves covered in blood. Suddenly a mass moved on top of the tree next to the one I was looking up at.
I swung my rifle up, pointing above me at the top of the trees. The mass turned and into view came two glowing eyes, like white lights in my night vision. It opened its mouth again to let out another deafening scream but I raised my rifle and took aim. Its scream was cut short by a bang from my barrel and the thud of the rounds meeting flesh. I was only able to squeeze half a dozen rounds off before it leaped away, to the tops of the neighboring trees.
I kept shooting as it jumped from one tree to another, though within seconds it was out of my line of sight. I charged through the woods after it and watched it leap impossible distances, shaking trees so hard I thought some might snap. All the while I kept trying and failing, to line up a clean shot. The ones I did manage to squeeze off were either misses or ineffective.
Even at the full-on sprint that I managed to sustain for a good few minutes, I was barely able to keep up. I almost abandoned the chase entirely before I saw an opportunity. There was a clearing ahead. A trail. The distance across was far too wide for it to jump. It took a sharp right once it realized this and began jumping from tree to tree along the trail. I rushed into the opening before kneeling to line up a shot. I followed it with my sights, tracking the timing of each leap, and letting t it land and leap once more before it settled on a new tree. I shot off two more rounds as it braced to leap again.
They were perfectly placed and its body tumbled in the air and crashed violently to the ground. Having lined up my sight, I squeezed the trigger again to hear the absence of a gunshot, replaced by the click of the firing pin in the empty chamber. I screamed curses at myself as I quickly exchanged magazines. By the time I looked up, the body was already gone.
I got to my feet and continued down the trail at a jog-like pace with my rifle at the ready. I was beginning to get frustrated more than anything. I’ve put dozens of these things in the ground before, I didn’t understand why was I having such a hard time with this one. As I approached a curve in the trail, I slowed my pace and brought the stock of my rifle back to my shoulder. I approached the curve from the outside of the trail, trying to get a clear view of what was beyond when my head violently snapped to the left.
My vision went suddenly dark and it took me a few moments to realize that I wasn't dead, nor was I unconscious. Something hit my night vision goggles and knocked them clear off of my head, breaking the mount they sat on. My eyes were only beginning to adapt to the dark when another object came flying towards my head, narrowly missing as it whistled forcefully past my ear. It was a rock, around the size of a football. I couldn’t help but glance behind me in astonishment at the object that had nearly decapitated me before turning my attention back to what threw it.
Sure enough, there it was. Standing behind the trees at the corner of the path. I let my anger take control and began to fire rapidly at its torso. My disregard for accuracy hardly mattered at this range. Regrettably, it meant I was now closer than I would have liked and it began to charge. I landed shot after shot. Blood spurted from its back and painted the tree branches and leaves that it passed as it barreled toward me.
Again, my magazine went empty. Instead of bothering to reload a new one, I quickly drew my Glock and continued my rapid fire on the beast. It broke into the clearing and fell to all fours before it leaped forward and ran as it had done in the field. It closed the distance between us in seconds.
A hand clenched around my throat and I was lifted off of the ground like a feather. It kept running, past the edge of the clearing and carrying me into the woods. I continued to pepper it at point-blank range with my pistol. Between shots, I could hear its hysterical laughter directed at my futile efforts. Its face smiled with a look of sadistic insanity.
I continued shooting until my magazine went dry and I was stuck with an empty gun. With nothing else I could do, I began to beat its face with the empty pistol. This seemed to piss it off. It violently threw me through the air. I felt my body snap dozens of branches before I met the ground and rolled uncontrollably.
Recovering quickly, I grasped the rifle still slung around me and replaced the empty magazine with a new one. It was mere feet away from me when I started to fire. I got a few shots off before it grabbed my arm. This time I whipped the barrel of my rifle up, clubbing it hard across the face. It let out a short, irritated scream. I thrust my barrel at the top of its head, knocking it back as it emitted another angry grunt. It reached up with its left arm and tried to grab the barrel before half of its fingers were blown off by my next shot. It recoiled its arm in pain before swinging it back at me.
Upon contact, my rifle flew out of my hands and the sling came undone from my body as it was thrown far into the woods behind me. I attempted to retreat before he grabbed me with his right hand, and what remained of his left around my neck. Again, I was picked up and it carried me, this time only a short distance to a tree. My back cracked as I was slammed into the bark.
It looked up at me and smiled again.
“We killed our sinners, we brought justice to our land. We brought justice for God”
I ignored its foul speech, lifting an arm and hooking it across the face with a firm punch. It had no effect.
“You are all sinners, and you will die for your sins as they did”
Again, I struggled and pummeled its face with everything I could muster but it still did nothing.
“Now go and burn in the lake of fire”
It shouted, before laughing with a dozen sadistic voices all coming from its mouth.
It opened its mouth and its jaw was once again stretched to what should be an impossible level. It lowered me until I was level with it. It moved its open mouth toward my head, shaking with rage. Its teeth now inches from my face. Its breath, foul. With my left arm, I drew my knife, slashing it across the chest before plunging it into its neck. I hooked a punch with my right arm that finally caused it to stumble. It wound up its own punch and let it loose. I narrowly escaped, ducking out of the way before its fist met the tree and went right through, splitting it in half before the wood tumbled to the ground.
I took this opportunity to draw my .357. He recovered from its punch and faced me, pulling the knife from its neck and letting blood spurt and gush. It stared me down as it slowly approached, ready to deliver its finishing blow.
Its head was shaking now, harder than ever in anger, its mouth hung open to half its capacity where it showed its rows of rotting human teeth. I raised my revolver and attempted to steady my sights but I was too shaky. I quickly collected myself. Inhale. Exhale. The front sight became level with the rear. Squeeze.
The recoil caused the gun to rise enough for me to get a look at the damage. I clipped its mouth, in the corner of its jaw. It hung open, with one side detached completely. It wailed in pain as it gargled its blood and crumbled to the ground. I aimed again, cocking the hammer. Squeeze. With the second round, I detached its jaw completely.
“Let’s see you bite me now, fucker”
I painfully muttered with anger. It dropped my knife and was now laying flat on its back, breathing heavily. I approached, cocking the revolver again as I did. It reached out with its mangled hand but I kicked it away before placing my barrel to its skull. Squeeze. And then silence.
After dragging the body back to the field, I spent the next few hours retrieving my lost and damaged equipment, as well as tediously finding every one of my cameras. I then retrieved my vehicle and drove it to the edge of the field. There was just one more thing to do.
I opened my trunk and pulled out the metallic box. I don’t understand why they make these things so goddamn heavy. I opened it and placed the corpse inside before securing the extremely heavy-duty lock. Next was the hole. It wasn’t easy digging after I had been roughed up and tossed around by an undead religious maniac with superhuman strength, but at least this was the last thing I had to do.
I finished digging the hole, placed the metal casket inside, and covered it up. From there, I collected my equipment, packed it up, and took off. Supposedly there’s a cleanup crew that comes in after we’re done with these missions and destroys any bizarre evidence.
I suspect they take the body as well. Where do they take it? What do they do with it? I have no clue but I’ve been strictly reminded to not ask questions on the matter and to just stick to doing my job. Still, I always find myself wondering.
What I have even more questions about is why these things exist in the first place. What the hell is going on? Why them? Why now? Has this been going on for longer than I know? Am I being lied to? What happens next, in the future, if this keeps going on? It’s only been getting worse. They’ve only been popping up more and more frequently. When does it end? Does it end?
I have more questions than I do answers but what I can tell you is that this problem isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s only going to get worse. There are only going to be more of them, not less. The death toll will only continue to rise. People are going to find out sooner or later. It might as well be now. Maybe we will stop them. Maybe this will all come to an end one day, or maybe we are the ones who are all going to meet our end. Either way, I’ll be there to see it.
submitted by Harbinger_51 to nosleep [link] [comments]
On my way to this one, I got a speeding ticket from a cop at some little local department. Though I was, in fact, speeding, I got the feeling that he also didn’t so much like seeing a fed in his neck of the woods. The local police aren’t a fan of us, so I’ve come to learn. They tend to get suspicious of us, thinking we’re up to some top-secret mission behind their backs. I guess they would be right.
I kept driving down the gravel road until the navigation let me know my destination was coming up on the right. Turning down the radio as I approached, I glanced toward the empty fields and the woods that met them beyond. I then turned into the long dirt driveway leading to our civilians’ house and garage.
I rolled up and parked with my trunk facing the porch. Stepping out, I got another whiff of the fresh country air and looked at the area of operations that lay before me. I was surprised at the amount of land and space that I had at my disposal. Space is good for these jobs. Additionally, I was informed that there weren’t any neighbors close enough to worry about. I couldn’t have asked for a better setting.
After stretching and letting out a light sigh, I decided it was time to get to work. I pulled the keychain out of my pocket and unlocked the front door. It seemed like a nice enough place. It was certainly nothing worth complaining about given the conditions of houses I’ve faced in my previous assignments. I went back outside to my massive, government-issued vehicle and opened the trunk.
I pulled the first couple of duffel bags worth of equipment out and brought them inside. The kitchen was as good a place as any to set up. After making five or six trips of dragging heavy bags and boxes of my junk into the house, I went back outside to open the garage. Thank God we were able to catch this case early and the civilians were able to make it out in time. It also meant I got room in the garage to park this thing. All that remained in the truck was the large metallic box, but I wasn’t going to need that until later.
I shut the trunk and pulled my vehicle into the garage, closing it on my way out. I stepped back into the house where I changed from my suit to my gear. Wearing the suit all day annoys me but I suppose the higher-ups want us to look like good, “friendly” feds to the public. The public has no idea the kind of monsters we are.
I unpacked box after box of equipment and weapons. I loaded up my Glock 17 with its extended 30-round magazine just as I did with my standard .556 rifle. I checked the laser sights on both. All good. Next was my favorite, the.338 with the best scope you could ever ask for. It sure is nice having a virtually infinite budget. Perks of working for the US federal government I suppose. The final firearm I brought was my personal .357 magnum revolver that I kept holstered on my chest. I figure it’s never a bad idea to have one more gun, just in case. Maybe I should have brought more on this one. If things got too close, I always had my hunting knife. I sharpened it that morning before heading out.
The next few hours consisted of me going out into the woods near the house in various places and setting up dozens of my little cameras equipped with motion sensors. They were there to give me an idea of the location of anything that got brave enough to get close to the fields that surrounded the house, I would be able to know about anything that was coming to me. I didn’t take too much caution in setting them up. Things never get interesting until nightfall.
I returned to the house where I turned on my laptop and assured that all the cameras were connected and working. I could see every single one of them from there and would know if anything so much as moved. I then got situated on a chair by the kitchen table, where I opened the window and set up my .338 rifle to watch the fields with.
I suppose it would be worth mentioning why I’m out here, setting up fancy equipment in the woods and loading up an arsenal of guns while I’m alone in a farmhouse that isn’t mine. Let’s back it up.
March 1st, 2017, 3:33 am, Iowa
Dispatch gets a call from a local farmer. He claims to be looking at a figure standing still at the edge of a treeline on his property. The description given by the farmer was that of a man of average stature and build, clothed in a loose black or grey shirt and trousers and a large-brimmed hat.
The farmer tells dispatch that he had awoken abruptly roughly an hour earlier, unspecified as to why. He spotted the figure outside his kitchen window soon after. The figure had been standing near the edge of a row of trees. It was facing the house and hadn’t moved a muscle since the farmer noticed him. The farmer quickly retrieved his rifle and walked out onto his lawn, proceeding to brandish his firearm and tell the trespasser that this property was his and to leave immediately. The farmer, seeing that the man remained unthreatened by his warning and display of a firearm, retreaded back into his home to retrieve his phone and call 9-1-1 as he continued to watch the figure from his porch.
During this call, the farmer’s voice was noticeably nervous and frightened. The desperate tone and quivering speech continued to worsen as he went on explaining the situation to dispatch. Dispatch instructed the farmer to remain where he stood and not to approach the trespasser. Dispatch reassured the farmer that the police were on their way. A few quiet and uneventful minutes passed. Then, without warning, the farmer let out a horrified scream through the phone. The call was disconnected seconds later.
The police began their over 40-minute drive to the residence. Halfway to their arrival, multiple new calls were coming to dispatch from the farmer’s neighbors. They reported seeing a large stack of smoke coming from the farmer’s home, and the closest reported seeing the house on fire.
By the time police arrived, the house had burned to the ground. The fire department arrived shortly after but oddly enough, the fire had completely subsided. What remained was the charred crumbs of what was once a house. The firefighters that arrived on site were bewildered by how quickly the fire must have burned the house. There was no explanation they could fathom.
The police searched the nearby fields and woods for the farmer and alleged trespasser to no avail, however, their search was quickly called back upon the findings of the firefighters in the house. The man’s charred bones were found beneath the rubble but not as they should have been. It became clear after further investigation that the man’s limbs were ripped from his body before it was incinerated at an impossible speed. 4 .308 bullet casings were found where the porch of the house used to be. The rifle was found just outside of the house, unscathed despite its proximity to such a violent fire. Forensics confirmed that the rifle had fired these casings but the bullets themselves were never found.
This was the first, but far from the last.
October 28th, 2017, 11:07 pm, Montana
Dispatch gets a call from a rancher who spotted a woman in an old-fashioned black and white dress and wearing a linen cap. The rancher claimed the woman was standing amongst his cattle and not moving. The rancher expressed no panic or concern for his safety over the phone, but rather a concern for the woman in the field. The rancher also noted that his cattle kept their distance around the woman.
An ambulance arrived at 11:29. Paramedics found no trace of the alleged woman. They walked to the entrance of the rancher’s house and discovered his door to be unlocked and open. After calling for the rancher and getting no response, they stepped inside to be greeted by the corpse of the rancher, hanging from a noose in his stairwell. The man had no history of mental illness and none of his relatives or acquaintances had any reason to believe he was suicidal. Additionally, an autopsy report concluded that both arms were broken in multiple places as well as every finger as if they had been crumpled together by a great force. He could not have tied the noose himself.
November 29th, 2018, 2:06 am, Wisconsin
Dispatch gets a call from another farmer. He had spotted a woman in an old black and white dress and linen cap. The woman had been standing in the long driveway from the road to his house, lit by the lamp that covered it. She stood motionless in the cold, windy, and heavily snowing weather. The farmer and his wife were later found under a collapsed wall of their crumpled house with stones placed on top. They had been placed in a seemingly orderly fashion until there was enough weight to crush their bones.
This happens to be the first incident we have on record with photo evidence. A trail cam owned by the farmer and his wife a few acres away from the house caught a picture the night of the incident. It caught a picture of the woman exactly as the farmer had described. Black and white dress, white linen camp. It looked as though she had stepped through time from hundreds of years before and placed like a mannequin in front of the camera.
May 30th, 2019, Minnesota
September 3rd, 2019, Nebraska
January 4th, 2020, South Dakota
I could go on but the point is that these incidents have been happening more and more frequently and they aren’t stopping. We do know what they are, or at least what they’re supposed to represent to us.
Every single one of these “people” lived in North America during the witch trials. We don’t believe they were the ones who were executed. We believe they were the ones who made the accusations, the ones who got their neighbors killed, the ones who carried out the executions and now they’re back to kill again.
Luckily, my department picked up on these patterns early on and designated a team to deal with them. There are a few hundred of us. I am in the dark about what everyone does exactly. I haven’t met many but I do know that some find potential incidents, some investigate, some deal with the cover-up and handling the publicity, and then, of course, there are the ones you send in to eradicate the problem. That’s where I come in.
I am here to hunt them down, to put them back in their graves so it would seem. Sometimes I get here before they’ve claimed a victim, sometimes after. But their reign of terror comes to an end with me. They’ve never gotten away from me, and I have never failed an assignment. I didn’t plan on this night being any different.
A beep sounded from my laptop screen as an outline from one of the cameras lit up, indicating that the motion sensor detected movement. It had been quiet since I set it up, there was not even the slightest sign of wildlife. No deer, no squirrels, nothing. I leaned forward and intently examined the camera that had been triggered. There was nothing to see. Another sensor triggered. Again, the camera showed nothing. My eyes darted from camera to camera, looking for motion. Another camera triggered, though all that I caught sight of was a shaking tree branch. There was no wind today. Another. This time I saw it. A dog-looking figure darted across the camera in only a few frames, but I knew it was no dog.
I turned my attention from the cameras to the field in front of me, where the movement had come from. I got behind my rifle and looked down the scope to the treeline in the distance. My heart began to pound in my chest at an intense tempo.
I could feel the adrenaline kicking in while I scanned the edge of the field for movement. All that greeted me was the orange glint of the setting sun on the treeline and the tiny shadows of the little stumps of corn stalks in the otherwise empty field. It was silent. Not even a wind accompanied me this evening, though I can’t complain. It’s better for shooting.
For a few minutes, I continued to run my scope along the treeline, occasionally getting a peek with my own eyes. It was during one of these peeks when I noticed a color out of place, in between a couple of trees on the other side of the field—some sort of black-and-white spec that was there not a second before. I lowered my head down, back behind the scope, and centered it. As I steadied the scope, a man-like figure standing at the edge of the field came into focus.
It wore black, tattered rags of clothing that hung loosely on its rigid frame. It stood still, stiff as a board. Its eyes were fixed on something ahead of it. It took me a moment to realize it was focused on me. It didn’t move a muscle, not even blinking as it stared.
I came to my senses and prepared to do my job. I flipped the safety off of my rifle and centered my crosshairs on its chest. I began to breathe deeply, my finger on the trigger, ready to pull but I didn’t take the shot, not yet. I saw it start to move.
Even with the distance between us, my scope made the picture of this figure clear as day. The movement came from only one part of its body; its mouth. First, its crusty lips detached from one another and the mouth began to open. Steadily, it opened more, and more all the while the rest of its body and head remained fixed. Its jaw sank to what should have been all the more it could, but it didn’t stop. It fell further, dipping down below its chest, its skin like a stretched rubber band waiting to snap, though it didn’t, it kept stretching.
Still stiff as a board, the man-like thing remained with its eyes locked on me while its mouth sat open, impossibly wide. It stood still with its hanging jaw for a moment, a moment I shouldn’t have given it. Now I knew I had my target. I began to apply pressure to the trigger before I was stopped, shaken by a force.
A scream, like a choir of souls in despair being dragged off to hell, with the power of a thousand horns sounding the start of a medieval battle rung through the fields. Its volume caused flocks of birds in the nearby trees to fly away in a panic, its bass shuddered through my chest and left me too hypnotized to pull the trigger. I’ll never get used to hearing one of them scream.
“Here we go”
I muttered to myself, the only thought I could conjure from my brain at the moment.
Closing its mouth, it leaped forward and reached for the ground in front of it with its hands fixed like claws. As soon as they met the ground, the feet followed and planted themselves quickly so that it could boost itself forward once again. It had begun its terrible charge. All the while, its face remained fixed on me, rotting teeth exposed and clenched in rage. The speed at which it rushed across the empty field would make a deer running for its life look lazy in comparison, but I was the prey here.
Though my heart began to race at the sight of this abomination barreling toward me, this anomaly of hatred and hunger bound to flesh, I remained calm. I began to steady my breathing, taking control of each breath, in and out.
Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
Squeeze.
The crack of the shot rang out through the dimming sky and the field before me, my response to its enraged scream. I remained fixed on the target, observing the spatter of blood as it shot from its back. It began to scream again, this time rapidly and desperate in tone. I quickly moved the bolt and chambered the next round, accompanied by the soft ring of the brass bouncing on the floorboards under my chair.
Although I managed to land a clean shot to the chest, it didn’t do much. It kept running, keeping on at its same speed. Though now it changed its direction and was running adjacent to my position in the house. It was trying to flank me. It wanted to find a way around my line of sight. I couldn’t let it.
Again, I took control of my breathing. Slowly, I drifted my rifle on the bipod until the creature came back into view. Its limbs pounded at the ground with speed and power as it propelled itself across the field. I’ll never get used to seeing one run either.
Starting behind it, I continued to move the scope, just fast enough to begin gaining on him, just fast enough to let the crosshairs catch up. Inhale. Exhale. The crosshairs slowly began to overtake it. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze.
I chambered the next round quickly. This shot brought him to the ground, but it didn’t keep him there. After a short tumble, it rose and began to run again, this time back towards the woods it came from. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze.
The third shot grazed its back. Frustrated, I chambered another round and took aim, but it was far too late. Before I could even begin to line up my fourth shot, it had taken one final leap from the field back into the treeline it came from.
I let out a sigh and hung my head in disappointment. I knew what I had to do next but I sure as hell didn’t want to. The last flickers of sunlight shone through the open window and lit my .338 rifle as I reloaded the magazine. I sat and stared blankly at the screen in front of me, hoping a camera would pick up some sort of movement that could clue me into wherever it ran off to. Knowing my luck, I shouldn’t have expected it to.
After coming to terms with reality, I stood up and grabbed my .556, slinging it around my body and letting it hang in front of me. I aimed it down, looking through its sight and testing its laser again before checking the chamber. Good to go. Next, I adjusted the night vision set to my head before picking up my .338 and heading for the door. As I stepped outside, I let out another sigh, this one of stress. Hunting these things at night, on their own turf is never as fun, nor as easy as finishing them quickly from a distance but what choice did I have? I just wanted to get it over with.
I flipped down my goggles and switched them on, illuminating the dark field in green and white. I began my long walk across. It took me longer than expected. The speed of that monstrosity caused me to underestimate the size of the field. Each step I took was slow and quiet. I didn’t want the crunch of my feet meeting the dirt and remnants of corn stalks to disturb my hearing. If that thing made a noise, I needed to hear it. If only I could have quieted my incessant heavy, nervous breathing too.
I was not even halfway to the treeline when I reached the first pool of blood, where I had shot it for the second time, and it decided to retreat. Bits of flesh were scattered about the ground, but I didn’t care to stop and look. Instead, I focussed on the blood I could see that led back into the woods.
Any experienced hunter has had to track a deer or two. It can be very frustrating. The trail isn’t always so clear, and you never know how far it has gotten. In my case, I knew this thing was still alive, and it was angry.
I continued my walk, splitting my attention between the blood trail on the ground and the treeline in front of me, scanning for movement and listening. If I was lucky enough, it would have gotten bold and tried to take me down in the field. Unfortunately, I’m not so lucky. Silently, I followed the trail until it met the woods. I stopped walking and calmed myself.
I didn’t want to go past those damn trees, but there was no avoiding it. I had a job to do. I extended the bipod of my .338 and lowered it to the ground before raising the stock of my other rifle to my shoulder. I took a deep breath and resumed my walk, now even slower and more cautious. At least now my heavy breathing would be drowned out by the sound of snapping twigs beneath my feet.
Immediately upon entering the woods, I spotted the next sight of blood. It came from a tree branch, its leaves covered in the dripping crimson liquid. I walked up to observe, only to notice more blood on the branch above that one. And the next. I noticed the pattern and followed each branch up, one by one, each with its leaves covered in blood. Suddenly a mass moved on top of the tree next to the one I was looking up at.
I swung my rifle up, pointing above me at the top of the trees. The mass turned and into view came two glowing eyes, like white lights in my night vision. It opened its mouth again to let out another deafening scream but I raised my rifle and took aim. Its scream was cut short by a bang from my barrel and the thud of the rounds meeting flesh. I was only able to squeeze half a dozen rounds off before it leaped away, to the tops of the neighboring trees.
I kept shooting as it jumped from one tree to another, though within seconds it was out of my line of sight. I charged through the woods after it and watched it leap impossible distances, shaking trees so hard I thought some might snap. All the while I kept trying and failing, to line up a clean shot. The ones I did manage to squeeze off were either misses or ineffective.
Even at the full-on sprint that I managed to sustain for a good few minutes, I was barely able to keep up. I almost abandoned the chase entirely before I saw an opportunity. There was a clearing ahead. A trail. The distance across was far too wide for it to jump. It took a sharp right once it realized this and began jumping from tree to tree along the trail. I rushed into the opening before kneeling to line up a shot. I followed it with my sights, tracking the timing of each leap, and letting t it land and leap once more before it settled on a new tree. I shot off two more rounds as it braced to leap again.
They were perfectly placed and its body tumbled in the air and crashed violently to the ground. Having lined up my sight, I squeezed the trigger again to hear the absence of a gunshot, replaced by the click of the firing pin in the empty chamber. I screamed curses at myself as I quickly exchanged magazines. By the time I looked up, the body was already gone.
I got to my feet and continued down the trail at a jog-like pace with my rifle at the ready. I was beginning to get frustrated more than anything. I’ve put dozens of these things in the ground before, I didn’t understand why was I having such a hard time with this one. As I approached a curve in the trail, I slowed my pace and brought the stock of my rifle back to my shoulder. I approached the curve from the outside of the trail, trying to get a clear view of what was beyond when my head violently snapped to the left.
My vision went suddenly dark and it took me a few moments to realize that I wasn't dead, nor was I unconscious. Something hit my night vision goggles and knocked them clear off of my head, breaking the mount they sat on. My eyes were only beginning to adapt to the dark when another object came flying towards my head, narrowly missing as it whistled forcefully past my ear. It was a rock, around the size of a football. I couldn’t help but glance behind me in astonishment at the object that had nearly decapitated me before turning my attention back to what threw it.
Sure enough, there it was. Standing behind the trees at the corner of the path. I let my anger take control and began to fire rapidly at its torso. My disregard for accuracy hardly mattered at this range. Regrettably, it meant I was now closer than I would have liked and it began to charge. I landed shot after shot. Blood spurted from its back and painted the tree branches and leaves that it passed as it barreled toward me.
Again, my magazine went empty. Instead of bothering to reload a new one, I quickly drew my Glock and continued my rapid fire on the beast. It broke into the clearing and fell to all fours before it leaped forward and ran as it had done in the field. It closed the distance between us in seconds.
A hand clenched around my throat and I was lifted off of the ground like a feather. It kept running, past the edge of the clearing and carrying me into the woods. I continued to pepper it at point-blank range with my pistol. Between shots, I could hear its hysterical laughter directed at my futile efforts. Its face smiled with a look of sadistic insanity.
I continued shooting until my magazine went dry and I was stuck with an empty gun. With nothing else I could do, I began to beat its face with the empty pistol. This seemed to piss it off. It violently threw me through the air. I felt my body snap dozens of branches before I met the ground and rolled uncontrollably.
Recovering quickly, I grasped the rifle still slung around me and replaced the empty magazine with a new one. It was mere feet away from me when I started to fire. I got a few shots off before it grabbed my arm. This time I whipped the barrel of my rifle up, clubbing it hard across the face. It let out a short, irritated scream. I thrust my barrel at the top of its head, knocking it back as it emitted another angry grunt. It reached up with its left arm and tried to grab the barrel before half of its fingers were blown off by my next shot. It recoiled its arm in pain before swinging it back at me.
Upon contact, my rifle flew out of my hands and the sling came undone from my body as it was thrown far into the woods behind me. I attempted to retreat before he grabbed me with his right hand, and what remained of his left around my neck. Again, I was picked up and it carried me, this time only a short distance to a tree. My back cracked as I was slammed into the bark.
It looked up at me and smiled again.
“We killed our sinners, we brought justice to our land. We brought justice for God”
I ignored its foul speech, lifting an arm and hooking it across the face with a firm punch. It had no effect.
“You are all sinners, and you will die for your sins as they did”
Again, I struggled and pummeled its face with everything I could muster but it still did nothing.
“Now go and burn in the lake of fire”
It shouted, before laughing with a dozen sadistic voices all coming from its mouth.
It opened its mouth and its jaw was once again stretched to what should be an impossible level. It lowered me until I was level with it. It moved its open mouth toward my head, shaking with rage. Its teeth now inches from my face. Its breath, foul. With my left arm, I drew my knife, slashing it across the chest before plunging it into its neck. I hooked a punch with my right arm that finally caused it to stumble. It wound up its own punch and let it loose. I narrowly escaped, ducking out of the way before its fist met the tree and went right through, splitting it in half before the wood tumbled to the ground.
I took this opportunity to draw my .357. He recovered from its punch and faced me, pulling the knife from its neck and letting blood spurt and gush. It stared me down as it slowly approached, ready to deliver its finishing blow.
Its head was shaking now, harder than ever in anger, its mouth hung open to half its capacity where it showed its rows of rotting human teeth. I raised my revolver and attempted to steady my sights but I was too shaky. I quickly collected myself. Inhale. Exhale. The front sight became level with the rear. Squeeze.
The recoil caused the gun to rise enough for me to get a look at the damage. I clipped its mouth, in the corner of its jaw. It hung open, with one side detached completely. It wailed in pain as it gargled its blood and crumbled to the ground. I aimed again, cocking the hammer. Squeeze. With the second round, I detached its jaw completely.
“Let’s see you bite me now, fucker”
I painfully muttered with anger. It dropped my knife and was now laying flat on its back, breathing heavily. I approached, cocking the revolver again as I did. It reached out with its mangled hand but I kicked it away before placing my barrel to its skull. Squeeze. And then silence.
After dragging the body back to the field, I spent the next few hours retrieving my lost and damaged equipment, as well as tediously finding every one of my cameras. I then retrieved my vehicle and drove it to the edge of the field. There was just one more thing to do.
I opened my trunk and pulled out the metallic box. I don’t understand why they make these things so goddamn heavy. I opened it and placed the corpse inside before securing the extremely heavy-duty lock. Next was the hole. It wasn’t easy digging after I had been roughed up and tossed around by an undead religious maniac with superhuman strength, but at least this was the last thing I had to do.
I finished digging the hole, placed the metal casket inside, and covered it up. From there, I collected my equipment, packed it up, and took off. Supposedly there’s a cleanup crew that comes in after we’re done with these missions and destroys any bizarre evidence.
I suspect they take the body as well. Where do they take it? What do they do with it? I have no clue but I’ve been strictly reminded to not ask questions on the matter and to just stick to doing my job. Still, I always find myself wondering.
What I have even more questions about is why these things exist in the first place. What the hell is going on? Why them? Why now? Has this been going on for longer than I know? Am I being lied to? What happens next, in the future, if this keeps going on? It’s only been getting worse. They’ve only been popping up more and more frequently. When does it end? Does it end?
I have more questions than I do answers but what I can tell you is that this problem isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s only going to get worse. There are only going to be more of them, not less. The death toll will only continue to rise. People are going to find out sooner or later. It might as well be now. Maybe we will stop them. Maybe this will all come to an end one day, or maybe we are the ones who are all going to meet our end. Either way, I’ll be there to see it.
2023.03.25 04:47 Senior-House-9084 Lost in Translation Part 1
David, Alice, and Frank watched the white, featureless and glowing - oval ship silently approach and then hover a few feet above the desert. As a door appeared in the side and dropped down to create a ramp – Frank said: “The algorithm worked! We just made contact with aliens!” A moment later he muttered to himself: “I wish we had thought about what to do if we did contact aliens.”
The aliens exited the ship with circular disks floating over their heads. After making some indecipherable gestures, they set up an odd looking device that then hung in the air. They then said something that sounded like breaking glass. When they finished the device said: “Trickery can't smell video games.”
David replied: “Uh . . . Hello?” The device then made more sounds like breaking glass and the aliens turned and – looked at each other? Did they even have eyes? Then another one spoke and the device said: “ A baked potato stands on somebody else’s Legs!”
In an attempt to defuse the situation Alice stepped forwards to shake the closer alien’s arm? Tentacle? Not a body part at all? Just as she took hold of it - something made a squishy crunching noise from under her foot. The alien let out a loud “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” noise and Alice jumped – producing another squishy/crunchy noise from the appendage she was holding. The device then said: “” Alice backpedaled while two other aliens started waving devices that were shaped like the letter ‘N’ in what was presumably a threatening manner. One of them announced: “ A sickeningly prodigious profile is often pregnant!” while two others helped their injured comrade back to the ship.
After they were aboard, the door closed the alien ship shot upwards – creating a sonic boom that knocked them to the ground and blew out the windows in the truck and the RV.
The dazed trio lay on the ground for more than a few moments and Frank was the first to speak: “What . . . just . . . happened?”
*******
She was reading her grandchildren a bedtime story when the phone rang. She apologized to the kids and promised them two stories tomorrow, then went to her office to answer it.
She answered the phone: “General Abrams.” “Ma’am – Major Johnson, duty officer. We have an incursion. Mojave Desert, California, 15 miles north of . . . a town named Ludlow. I have placed the QRF on alert.”
“Get the QRF in the air – we can always recall them if it turns out they aren’t needed. Contact the nearby airbases and find out if any of them can get aircraft overhead to feed us video of what’s on the ground. Recall the staff – I’m on my way in.”
………
Alice sat up and then decided that she was going to wait a few more minutes before trying to stand up. Looking around she couldn’t see David or Frank in the dark and called out: “Are you guys OK?” Frank replied: “I don’t think I’m badly hurt, but when I tried to stand up, I just fell down again.” David answered with: “My head’s still spinning a bit but not as bad as a minute ago.” Then he asked: “What happened to the lights?”
In a blinding flash of hindsight Alice realized that the reason it was dark was because the lights were out. “Must still be a little loopy after whatever that was hit us.” she thought.
By unspoken consensus they decided to just lie there until they felt they felt good enough to stand up.
………..
General Abrams walked up to the doors to the Operations Building. As she approached the steps, a calm and quiet voice announced: “Halt.” She stopped – being careful to ensure that her hands remained visible. “Who is there?”
“General Abrams”
“Advance and be recognized.”
She took three more steps and:
“Halt” then: “Fencepost” General Abrams congratulated herself for looking up the password before she got out of her car and replied: “Handbook”
“I recognize you General – you may pass.”
The General thought: “The duty officer posted extra security – that’s not a good sign.” She then entered the building without ever getting a glimpse of the sentry. Something she approved of.
……….
Alice finally felt good enough to stand up and pulled out her phone for more light, looked down at it and . . . nothing. She then looked around and discovered that she could see – not well. but see well enough. David said: “it’s dark and I can still see – did the aliens do something to us?” Alice knew the biology here – but this was the first time she had ever actually used it. She said: “It’s natural, in the dark our eyes produce ‘Rhodopsin’ a chemical commonly referred to as ‘visual purple’ that triggers phototransduction in the rod cells and . . .” Frank interrupted her: “OK - in the dark our eyes make a chemical that lets us see better in the dark.” Alice argued: “Well it’s not that simple.” Rolling his eyes Frank sand: “It’s close enough. Lets start figuring out what works and what doesn’t.” David gave a sigh of relief at avoiding a 15 minute lecture on the biological and chemical processes behind our ability to see in the dark.
*********
General Abrams walked into the operations center and looked at her Chief of Staff: “What’s the bad news?” At the same time wondering how he always not only managed to get here before she did – but had enough time to get a good picture of the situation also.
Captain Halsey (US Navy) called forward Captain Ryker from US Space Force. “Ma’am – when we looked at the records over the past several weeks, we discovered that every Friday and Saturday night a beacon sending data using some kind of advanced algorithm had been active at that location. And it was active tonight.”
“Did our deep space surveillance detect the ship?” “We didn’t detect it coming in but when it left it made no attempt to hide. Once this crisis ends, we’ll spend some time looking into how it evaded the deep space surveillance network.”
“Good job – carry on,”
She then turned and looked at the Operations Officer – who had just arrived and was getting briefed. She got his attention and when he turned his attention to her, she said one word: “Ready?”
“I have the most important stuff. QRF went wheels up 5 minutes ago. Flight time to target location is 40 minutes. Augmentation force has just called in and stated that they can be wheels-up on three minutes notice. Aliens were not detected when inbound but were detected outbound.”
The general: “OK the situation is worse than we expected. Launch the augmentation force with orders to take control of the target location and to secure it. QRF is to parachute in and capture anybody they find, then set up security until the augmentation force arrives. Once the augmentation force arrives, they are to return with any people they located and anything unusual that they find. Talk to Captain Ryker – he'll give you the bad news.”
She then turned and called out: “Air Ops – when are we going to have eyes on the target?” A Captain in an Air Force uniform put his hand over the receiver of the phone he was using and replied: “I’ve got two Marine F-35s and a C-130 tanker practicing air refueling ops 150 miles to the south. The F-35s are enroute and I’m working on grabbing the tanker in case the V-22s need fuel.” Estimated time over the target for the F-35s is just over 15 minutes.”
Satisfied that that her staff had things well in hand and that it would be a few more minutes before she needed to do anything, she decided to get a cup of coffee and stay out of their hair until then. She walked into the break room. She poured a cup, took a sip and . . . An angry voice bellowed from the break room: “Who let Navy make the coffee?”
********
“Well, the good news is that the problem appears to be that every battery we have is drained completely. We do have a small solar panel that we can use to charge the battery on the truck enough to get it started. Then we can jump start the RV and get out of here.” “Oh – and now for the really good news.” He pulled out a chemlight, said “Let there be light!” and snapped the vial inside it. A moment later he said: “I thought it would be brighter.”
Alice listened to Frank’s report as she put down the meager amount of sticks and brush she had managed to locate. She then said: “Well it appears that gathering firewood in a desert in the dark is just about as difficult as we expected.”
David came and placed his pile of sticks and dried brush and sat down and started spinning a stick between the palms of his hands. Frank came over and asked: “What are you doing?”
“Spinning a stick. The friction will heat up the tip and we can use that to get a fire started.”
“Why don’t you use the matches in the RV?”
“We have matches?”
**********
“We have eyes on the target location. Sending the imagery to the center display.”
The thermal imagery showed three people sitting around a campfire, a pickup truck and an RV. When the pilot switched the display from ‘white hot’ to ‘black hot’ the previously invisible tables and what appeared to be radio components showed up against the warmer sand underneath them.
“Is the QRF seeing this?” asked the general. The Air Ops officer replied: “They’re piggybacking off of our feed.” And in anticipation of her next question: “QRF is 22 minutes out and will deploy via parachute upon arrival.”
The fire had burned down and the only light was coming from the chemlite. The trio had finished a snack of toasted marshmallows and were now drinking some hot chocolate Alice had made. “Good thing propane stoves don’t need electricity.” Alice said to ease the feeling of gloom that was setting in. David says: “All in all – it looks like we’re lucky that nobody but us knows about this.”
*********
The video from the second F-35 came on – showing the Special Forces team land, discard their parachutes, don gas masks, and then - using nothing but hand signals - form up into an inverted V formation and move out towards the target.
******** Frank: “Well, I think that we might as well go get some sleep. We are going to have to make sure we get the glass out of the bedding though.”
In response to Frank’s comment David added: “Yea – looks like the worst is ov . . .” Then: “What’s that?” as objects landed in the sand on either side of them.
David suddenly couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and his eyes and ears hurt.
**********
Both video feeds showed the same thing. The Special Forces team stunned the three people with flash bangs – then one ran towards each of the three people, yanked them out of their chairs and threw them face down into the sand. They then bound their arms with zip-tie handcuffs and put bags over their heads. The other three provided cover for the first. Once the three were immobilized two commandos kept watch on the trio while other four cleared the RV and the truck.
Then the team sent their first and only radio message: “Bastion – this is Predator Three. Objective secured, three persons detained, continuing mission – out.”
“OK – the good news is that we have determined that you have not been exposed to some alien supergerm that can wipe out all life on this planet. The bad news is that I Hate You. Friday night I was with my boyfriend, and he was about to propose – when I got the recall message.”
The annoyed nurse continued: “The exit doors are unlocking. Take a shower and put on the coveralls. You are no longer my problem!”
David: “What she means is that we are now somebody else’s problem. Somebody who can send a military team to kidnap us.”
Alice: “And has a Level Four Biosafety laboratory to use as a quarantine area.”
The Nurse: “Actually this is a Level Five facility.”
Alice: “What’s the difference between a level Four and a level Five?”
The Nurse: “A Level Five is one that would automatically flood the entire facility with Chlorine Trifluoride if any of you got sick from an alien pathogen.”
submitted by Senior-House-9084 to u/Senior-House-9084 [link] [comments]
The aliens exited the ship with circular disks floating over their heads. After making some indecipherable gestures, they set up an odd looking device that then hung in the air. They then said something that sounded like breaking glass. When they finished the device said: “Trickery can't smell video games.”
David replied: “Uh . . . Hello?” The device then made more sounds like breaking glass and the aliens turned and – looked at each other? Did they even have eyes? Then another one spoke and the device said: “
In an attempt to defuse the situation Alice stepped forwards to shake the closer alien’s arm? Tentacle? Not a body part at all? Just as she took hold of it - something made a squishy crunching noise from under her foot. The alien let out a loud “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” noise and Alice jumped – producing another squishy/crunchy noise from the appendage she was holding. The device then said: “
After they were aboard, the door closed the alien ship shot upwards – creating a sonic boom that knocked them to the ground and blew out the windows in the truck and the RV.
The dazed trio lay on the ground for more than a few moments and Frank was the first to speak: “What . . . just . . . happened?”
*******
She was reading her grandchildren a bedtime story when the phone rang. She apologized to the kids and promised them two stories tomorrow, then went to her office to answer it.
She answered the phone: “General Abrams.” “Ma’am – Major Johnson, duty officer. We have an incursion. Mojave Desert, California, 15 miles north of . . . a town named Ludlow. I have placed the QRF on alert.”
“Get the QRF in the air – we can always recall them if it turns out they aren’t needed. Contact the nearby airbases and find out if any of them can get aircraft overhead to feed us video of what’s on the ground. Recall the staff – I’m on my way in.”
………
Alice sat up and then decided that she was going to wait a few more minutes before trying to stand up. Looking around she couldn’t see David or Frank in the dark and called out: “Are you guys OK?” Frank replied: “I don’t think I’m badly hurt, but when I tried to stand up, I just fell down again.” David answered with: “My head’s still spinning a bit but not as bad as a minute ago.” Then he asked: “What happened to the lights?”
In a blinding flash of hindsight Alice realized that the reason it was dark was because the lights were out. “Must still be a little loopy after whatever that was hit us.” she thought.
By unspoken consensus they decided to just lie there until they felt they felt good enough to stand up.
………..
General Abrams walked up to the doors to the Operations Building. As she approached the steps, a calm and quiet voice announced: “Halt.” She stopped – being careful to ensure that her hands remained visible. “Who is there?”
“General Abrams”
“Advance and be recognized.”
She took three more steps and:
“Halt” then: “Fencepost” General Abrams congratulated herself for looking up the password before she got out of her car and replied: “Handbook”
“I recognize you General – you may pass.”
The General thought: “The duty officer posted extra security – that’s not a good sign.” She then entered the building without ever getting a glimpse of the sentry. Something she approved of.
……….
Alice finally felt good enough to stand up and pulled out her phone for more light, looked down at it and . . . nothing. She then looked around and discovered that she could see – not well. but see well enough. David said: “it’s dark and I can still see – did the aliens do something to us?” Alice knew the biology here – but this was the first time she had ever actually used it. She said: “It’s natural, in the dark our eyes produce ‘Rhodopsin’ a chemical commonly referred to as ‘visual purple’ that triggers phototransduction in the rod cells and . . .” Frank interrupted her: “OK - in the dark our eyes make a chemical that lets us see better in the dark.” Alice argued: “Well it’s not that simple.” Rolling his eyes Frank sand: “It’s close enough. Lets start figuring out what works and what doesn’t.” David gave a sigh of relief at avoiding a 15 minute lecture on the biological and chemical processes behind our ability to see in the dark.
*********
General Abrams walked into the operations center and looked at her Chief of Staff: “What’s the bad news?” At the same time wondering how he always not only managed to get here before she did – but had enough time to get a good picture of the situation also.
Captain Halsey (US Navy) called forward Captain Ryker from US Space Force. “Ma’am – when we looked at the records over the past several weeks, we discovered that every Friday and Saturday night a beacon sending data using some kind of advanced algorithm had been active at that location. And it was active tonight.”
“Did our deep space surveillance detect the ship?” “We didn’t detect it coming in but when it left it made no attempt to hide. Once this crisis ends, we’ll spend some time looking into how it evaded the deep space surveillance network.”
“Good job – carry on,”
She then turned and looked at the Operations Officer – who had just arrived and was getting briefed. She got his attention and when he turned his attention to her, she said one word: “Ready?”
“I have the most important stuff. QRF went wheels up 5 minutes ago. Flight time to target location is 40 minutes. Augmentation force has just called in and stated that they can be wheels-up on three minutes notice. Aliens were not detected when inbound but were detected outbound.”
The general: “OK the situation is worse than we expected. Launch the augmentation force with orders to take control of the target location and to secure it. QRF is to parachute in and capture anybody they find, then set up security until the augmentation force arrives. Once the augmentation force arrives, they are to return with any people they located and anything unusual that they find. Talk to Captain Ryker – he'll give you the bad news.”
She then turned and called out: “Air Ops – when are we going to have eyes on the target?” A Captain in an Air Force uniform put his hand over the receiver of the phone he was using and replied: “I’ve got two Marine F-35s and a C-130 tanker practicing air refueling ops 150 miles to the south. The F-35s are enroute and I’m working on grabbing the tanker in case the V-22s need fuel.” Estimated time over the target for the F-35s is just over 15 minutes.”
Satisfied that that her staff had things well in hand and that it would be a few more minutes before she needed to do anything, she decided to get a cup of coffee and stay out of their hair until then. She walked into the break room. She poured a cup, took a sip and . . . An angry voice bellowed from the break room: “Who let Navy make the coffee?”
********
“Well, the good news is that the problem appears to be that every battery we have is drained completely. We do have a small solar panel that we can use to charge the battery on the truck enough to get it started. Then we can jump start the RV and get out of here.” “Oh – and now for the really good news.” He pulled out a chemlight, said “Let there be light!” and snapped the vial inside it. A moment later he said: “I thought it would be brighter.”
Alice listened to Frank’s report as she put down the meager amount of sticks and brush she had managed to locate. She then said: “Well it appears that gathering firewood in a desert in the dark is just about as difficult as we expected.”
David came and placed his pile of sticks and dried brush and sat down and started spinning a stick between the palms of his hands. Frank came over and asked: “What are you doing?”
“Spinning a stick. The friction will heat up the tip and we can use that to get a fire started.”
“Why don’t you use the matches in the RV?”
“We have matches?”
**********
“We have eyes on the target location. Sending the imagery to the center display.”
The thermal imagery showed three people sitting around a campfire, a pickup truck and an RV. When the pilot switched the display from ‘white hot’ to ‘black hot’ the previously invisible tables and what appeared to be radio components showed up against the warmer sand underneath them.
“Is the QRF seeing this?” asked the general. The Air Ops officer replied: “They’re piggybacking off of our feed.” And in anticipation of her next question: “QRF is 22 minutes out and will deploy via parachute upon arrival.”
The fire had burned down and the only light was coming from the chemlite. The trio had finished a snack of toasted marshmallows and were now drinking some hot chocolate Alice had made. “Good thing propane stoves don’t need electricity.” Alice said to ease the feeling of gloom that was setting in. David says: “All in all – it looks like we’re lucky that nobody but us knows about this.”
*********
The video from the second F-35 came on – showing the Special Forces team land, discard their parachutes, don gas masks, and then - using nothing but hand signals - form up into an inverted V formation and move out towards the target.
******** Frank: “Well, I think that we might as well go get some sleep. We are going to have to make sure we get the glass out of the bedding though.”
In response to Frank’s comment David added: “Yea – looks like the worst is ov . . .” Then: “What’s that?” as objects landed in the sand on either side of them.
**********
Both video feeds showed the same thing. The Special Forces team stunned the three people with flash bangs – then one ran towards each of the three people, yanked them out of their chairs and threw them face down into the sand. They then bound their arms with zip-tie handcuffs and put bags over their heads. The other three provided cover for the first. Once the three were immobilized two commandos kept watch on the trio while other four cleared the RV and the truck.
Then the team sent their first and only radio message: “Bastion – this is Predator Three. Objective secured, three persons detained, continuing mission – out.”
“OK – the good news is that we have determined that you have not been exposed to some alien supergerm that can wipe out all life on this planet. The bad news is that I Hate You. Friday night I was with my boyfriend, and he was about to propose – when I got the recall message.”
The annoyed nurse continued: “The exit doors are unlocking. Take a shower and put on the coveralls. You are no longer my problem!”
David: “What she means is that we are now somebody else’s problem. Somebody who can send a military team to kidnap us.”
Alice: “And has a Level Four Biosafety laboratory to use as a quarantine area.”
The Nurse: “Actually this is a Level Five facility.”
Alice: “What’s the difference between a level Four and a level Five?”
The Nurse: “A Level Five is one that would automatically flood the entire facility with Chlorine Trifluoride if any of you got sick from an alien pathogen.”
2023.03.25 03:22 BadTakeBrian Enterprise Group ($E.TO, $ETOLF.OTC): Cash Flow Machine, Deep Value, Squeeze Potential
 | Intro submitted by BadTakeBrian to SmallCapStocks [link] [comments] I should start by saying that the search for a company like Enterprise began under the following pretense: I have a bearish view of where I think broad markets are going by the end of 2023 and wanted somewhere to hide out while still maintaining the potential to double my investment under any broad market scenario. Enterprise Group fits that bill. The Company is a niche energy service company that provides site infrastructure services to remote western Canadian production sites for pipelines, construction and oil and gas sectors in western Canada. I believe Enterprise is a fantastic and deeply overlooked company fit for retail investors (like me) who have the ability to enter a position ahead of institutions catching hold of the name. The core thesis on Enterprise is: - Low correlation to broad markets - High growth and 30% cash flow yield - Healthy balance sheet providing ~$20M in dry powder for potential non-dilutive M&A - Share buyback in place to support stock - Unique low-emission fleet of equipment to grow market share - Structural market expansion History Enterprise was founded in 2004, though as it stands today, is a much leaner and higher growth business compared to what it was in the last bull market for energy in 2008-2014. Where many competitors went out of business during the bear market between 2014-2021, Enterprise wisely divested from lower margin business units, preserved its balance sheet and due to its unique fleet of equipment – was able to maintain cash flow positive during this time. M&A is part of the corporate DNA of Enterprise and has had a successful track record on that front. While others were still reeling from previous years downturn or still trying to repair their balance sheets in 2020/2021, Enterprise was able to utilize the strength of its balance sheet and positive cash flows to countercyclically invest into new business units to position themselves for the eventual return of energy markets we are now experiencing. A great example of this is the launch of Evolution Power in 2022, which offers a fleet of low-emission microgrids that power the entire production site with natural gas, replacing diesel generators. In doing so, EP reduces CO2 emissions by 30%, gives Enterprise higher margins, is safer and more efficient for the customer. As one of the few “green options” in the energy sector, they are becoming the first choice for larger oil and gas clients subject to Canada’s “heavy emitter” penalties. Market The large majority of Enterprise’s sales are derived from western Canadian energy producers, with a greater share of natural gas producers compared to oil producers within its book of clients. Though Enterprise profits have less commodity risk than their actual producing clients, the Company nevertheless is derivatively exposed to energy prices (though I believe there are some factors that reduce the correlation that I will get into later). After years of producers not investing into large exploration projects due to ESG mandates, regulations and low prices, the outlook on energy markets looks extremely promising for producers and has already begun to see a notable uptick in production levels that are expected to continue for a market that looks undersupplied in years ahead. More specifically to Enterprise’s western Canadian market, there are some very visible demand drivers on the horizon based on new pipeline capacity that provide a near certain increase in demand for services like Enterprise. This demand is structured within tens of billions of dollars of sunk infrastructure capital to provide a roadmap of oil and gas (mostly gas) production expansion in western Canada. Beginning in 2023 with the completion of NGTL network expansion (gas) and TMX pipeline (oil), there will continue to be major new export capacity to come online nearly every year this decade, with recent first nations LNG projects advancing on the west coast. For Canadian gas producers, the pipelines will allow them to access higher priced Asian markets, where prices are often multiples of those received in Canada or the US. You can bet there is going to be prompt increases to production to ship whatever they can to those markets, given the preferred economics. Financials Enterprise just recently released their full year 2022 financials March 20, 2023, where they posted fantastic results. Rather than do a deep dive into financials today, will simply share some important highlights and suggest reviewing their financials below: (https://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00020838) https://preview.redd.it/dhuxx4hepspa1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=486a01ec3e2fc8f21628bd6a0a20c0a4607aaa57 Additional items: - Bought back 1.8M shares in 2022 - Secured US OTC listing to increase access to US investors - Renewed buyback program - Available tax losses of $0.17/share - Purchased $5.6M of new equipment - Subsequently signed one of largest contracts in company history in Jan 2023 Share Structure Enterprise currently has 50.3M shares outstanding, with another 5M options exercisable at $0.45. Notably, management/board were buyers in the open market over the last few years and now hold over 40% of all shares outstanding. This is where I think it gets uniquely attractive for us retail investors. Since the last energy cycle, nearly all of the research analysts that covered the sector have moved on, meaning the few analysts left covering the space are focused on large-cap players and there are none covering companies the size of Enterprise. There is a window for retail to build a position in a hugely profitable company with a tight share structure subject to a potential squeeze before institutions begin to take notice. Finally – and maybe most importantly – 2022 saw a unique trading dynamic occur due to a large shareholder selling down their position. This shareholder accidentally accumulated a >10% ownership position, unknowingly triggering a requirement to file any purchase/sale of stock (see sedi filings to confirm). That shareholder then spent the entire year reducing their position below 10% but because there was not a large float of shares trading hands, effectively put a ceiling on the stock the entire year and single-handedly compressed the multiple. This does not appear to have been done with ill intent but explains why the stock bounced between a floor of around $0.38 (supported by the buyback) and $0.42 (where the shareholder was selling) despite everything going right for the company operationally. In January, the company bought back the final tranche of shares needed to get that shareholder below the 10% threshold, thereby clearing the way for share price to better track the improving cash flow of the company. Valuation Enterprise is currently trading at a deeply discounted valuation and historically low multiple, which is ironic considering this may be the best market they've ever operated in. As a particular point of reference, a comparison below for the 2020-2022 periods for EV/EBITDA and some other metrics that could influence the deserved multiple such as growth, profitability, and credit risk. I’ve also already listed a few reasons to be bullish on their future market (pipelines coming online beginning this year), which is consistent with management’s outlook from their MD&A that “…customers have indicated they will continue to operate at increased activities through the remainder of the year”. Though a 10-11x multiple shouldn't be expected moving forward, you can see the impact of having a large shareholder exiting with a small float and how a lack of share price movement can lose investor attention. Over the course of a year, Enterprise added over $5M in EBITDA (+175%) and barely saw its valuation change at all! *2022 year using current share price At a current 4.2x EV/EBITDA, Enterprise is trading far below the 6x it has traded in previous cycles and which seems very reasonable as a base case scenario. It would take very little notional buying for that re-rate to occur and for those able to establish a position at these prices, it would represent a 74% return. https://preview.redd.it/90ink2aipspa1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bfb3069ef4af77b5d3c2f473744dc7437238048 Finally, if Enterprise is seen through a different valuation lens**, the company just released in their earnings that equity holders would be due $0.68/share ($0.39 current share price) if the company simply sold all of their equipment at book value.** Multiple arguments to show that Enterprise is undervalued. Outlook Enterprise has a strong outlook on market fundamentals to support top line growth, increasing pricing power to maintain/increase margins and new revenue potential coming online with equipment additions. Given history of M&A activity, balance sheet flexibility and the fact some targets are still not fully recovered from 2014-2021 period, it would be very surprising if the company did not make one or more acquisitions in the near-future. Management has said as much on their recent twitter spaces interview. Fortunately for equity holders, management does not have to dilute shareholders while its equity remains undervalued. With $20M in unused credit at their disposal (their current market cap), they would have the ability to make a material acquisition without needing any equity at all. Even if they were to make an even larger acquisition, their debt providers are Ninepoint Partners (via Waygar Capital), who are home to none other than Eric Nuttall, who is the largest and most bullish energy fund manager on earth. You can bet that if the right target came along with the right assets/cash flow, Ninepoint would be more than happy to increase the size of that facility if they aren’t able to secure some seller's financing. If we assume a slight liquidity discount on a PrivateCo acquisition, $20M at 3x EV/EBITDA could buy around $6-7M of incremental EBITDA, effectively doubling the “cash flow” of the company before considering any synergies. Prospect of cross-selling new rental equipment would be high. If something like this came to pass and they grew to a $15M EBITDA business, there would undoubtedly be a whole new supply of small institutions that would be interested and could be an attractive buyout candidate for private equity, who they’re currently competing with for acquisitions. Risk Commodity Risk: This being the most obvious risk to the company. If we were to go back to the dark ages (2014-2021), there would be a material impact on Enterprise financials. I believe commodity risk for Enterprise is mitigated for 3 reasons:
No doubt we are entering a period of uncertainty, with global liquidity being reduced and the risk of recession on the horizon. I think this should be viewed in two ways:
Summary
I own shares in Enterprise. This is not financial advise. Please do your own due diligence. |
2023.03.25 03:18 WilliamsDesigning My dumpster diving list I created with 6 years of experience. Feel free to add.
I was a vagabond for 6 years, I hitchhiked, hopped freight trains and bicycled North America from Mexico to Alaska, east coast to west. I learned all of this on the way and figure it's time to share it.
Food:
🍕- all pizza places throw out pizza at 12-2am. It's a dumpster staple. [Yes pizza is still in the box, I wouldn't eat it otherwise]
🍩 - all donut shops (including places like kolache factory) throw out at 2-4pm. [They usually put all donuts into one bag by themselves]
🍗 (fried chicken) - actually very common, also a staple. Usually throw out is around an hour after they close which varies from place to place. Anything fried in bulk you can expect to find throw outs. [Usually still in boxes]
🍎 🥗 (produce) - grocery stores (time varies, but you also have to find places without a compactor. Some compactors you can break into but it's luck of the draw).
🍬 🍫 🍭 (candy, junk food, snacks) - CVS & Walgreens. They're the reigning Champs of throwing out hundreds of $ worth of candy a day. I kind of try to keep from telling people this one because you could get diabetes in like a week if you tried to eat it all. It's horrendous.
👕 👖 🩳 (clothes) - Washaterias or laundromats. People are infamous, especially in rich areas, for washing a load of laundry and then just leaving it, never to return. The laundromat workers will just gather the clothes and toss them, as they're pretty use to it. I've filled up a whole wardrobe on several occasions with expensive brands just by looking for a sack of already washed and dried laundry in the dumpster.
🛋 🖥 (furniture)(electronics)(decorations) - College towns, (Christmas & Summer break - these seasons are known as "Crustmas" in the dumpster diving community) anywhere students notoriously live. You can even find anything else your looking for really. College kids are the biggest dumpster diving source in history.
📚 books and comic books - Half Priced Books or any resale book store. I've accidently fallen asleep in dumpsters before because I drifted off while laying on top of all the books while reading.
❓️(Miscellaneous) - hotels are the biggest oddball dumpster diving experience you'll ever have. You can find drugs, clothes, anything that someone would bring in a suitcase. It's kind of scary some of the stuff you'll find...(sex toys, etc. )
Raw materials: --------
🪵Wood : Construction site dumpsters at expensive locations. Ask for permission from the contractor. Contractors are a mixed bunch, sometimes they'll say yes sometimes no.
⚙️🔩🔗Metal : machine shops - you can honestly just call these guys and 1/2 the time they'll let you onto their property and take what you want from the scrap bin. I'm 3 for 3 just by calling and asking politely for scrap.
🔨Tools - Harbor Freight tools, the return rate on tools at harbor freight is INSANE. So many people will buy a tool, use it one day and return it slightly bent or scratched. Most sites have a compactor but every now and then you can find with a regular dumpster. If so, you can score some pretty good tools.
🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮
Protip 1- Dumpster diving is all about schedule. Sometimes places only throw out the quality items once a month, sometimes they purge their inventory only seasonally, or sometimes it's daily. Finding out those routines is the key and all you have to do is probe the spot every now and then to figure that out.
2 - Heavy bags usually have the food. In the end I could just feel the outside of a bag and then weigh it a bit. With knowledge about the store, the schedule, feel and weight, I would already know what's inside.
3 - consistent dumpster diving will get you fit. The more you climb the more you find.
4 - GEAR: • Headlamp • closed toe shoes (for when you get inside the dumpster), • a big box or bag for your car to chunk stuff in.
5 - Clean up after yourself, if you leave a place a mess they will begin locking the dumpster. 🔒
submitted by WilliamsDesigning to DumpsterDiving [link] [comments]
Food:
🍕- all pizza places throw out pizza at 12-2am. It's a dumpster staple. [Yes pizza is still in the box, I wouldn't eat it otherwise]
🍩 - all donut shops (including places like kolache factory) throw out at 2-4pm. [They usually put all donuts into one bag by themselves]
🍗 (fried chicken) - actually very common, also a staple. Usually throw out is around an hour after they close which varies from place to place. Anything fried in bulk you can expect to find throw outs. [Usually still in boxes]
🍎 🥗 (produce) - grocery stores (time varies, but you also have to find places without a compactor. Some compactors you can break into but it's luck of the draw).
🍬 🍫 🍭 (candy, junk food, snacks) - CVS & Walgreens. They're the reigning Champs of throwing out hundreds of $ worth of candy a day. I kind of try to keep from telling people this one because you could get diabetes in like a week if you tried to eat it all. It's horrendous.
👕 👖 🩳 (clothes) - Washaterias or laundromats. People are infamous, especially in rich areas, for washing a load of laundry and then just leaving it, never to return. The laundromat workers will just gather the clothes and toss them, as they're pretty use to it. I've filled up a whole wardrobe on several occasions with expensive brands just by looking for a sack of already washed and dried laundry in the dumpster.
🛋 🖥 (furniture)(electronics)(decorations) - College towns, (Christmas & Summer break - these seasons are known as "Crustmas" in the dumpster diving community) anywhere students notoriously live. You can even find anything else your looking for really. College kids are the biggest dumpster diving source in history.
📚 books and comic books - Half Priced Books or any resale book store. I've accidently fallen asleep in dumpsters before because I drifted off while laying on top of all the books while reading.
❓️(Miscellaneous) - hotels are the biggest oddball dumpster diving experience you'll ever have. You can find drugs, clothes, anything that someone would bring in a suitcase. It's kind of scary some of the stuff you'll find...(sex toys, etc. )
Raw materials: --------
🪵Wood : Construction site dumpsters at expensive locations. Ask for permission from the contractor. Contractors are a mixed bunch, sometimes they'll say yes sometimes no.
⚙️🔩🔗Metal : machine shops - you can honestly just call these guys and 1/2 the time they'll let you onto their property and take what you want from the scrap bin. I'm 3 for 3 just by calling and asking politely for scrap.
🔨Tools - Harbor Freight tools, the return rate on tools at harbor freight is INSANE. So many people will buy a tool, use it one day and return it slightly bent or scratched. Most sites have a compactor but every now and then you can find with a regular dumpster. If so, you can score some pretty good tools.
🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮 🗑 🚮
Protip 1- Dumpster diving is all about schedule. Sometimes places only throw out the quality items once a month, sometimes they purge their inventory only seasonally, or sometimes it's daily. Finding out those routines is the key and all you have to do is probe the spot every now and then to figure that out.
2 - Heavy bags usually have the food. In the end I could just feel the outside of a bag and then weigh it a bit. With knowledge about the store, the schedule, feel and weight, I would already know what's inside.
3 - consistent dumpster diving will get you fit. The more you climb the more you find.
4 - GEAR: • Headlamp • closed toe shoes (for when you get inside the dumpster), • a big box or bag for your car to chunk stuff in.
5 - Clean up after yourself, if you leave a place a mess they will begin locking the dumpster. 🔒
2023.03.25 03:16 BadTakeBrian Enterprise Group ($E.TO, $ETOLF.OTC): Cash Flow Machine, Deep Value, Squeeze Potential
Intro
I should start by saying that the search for a company like Enterprise began under the following pretense: I have a bearish view of where I think broad markets are going by the end of 2023 and wanted somewhere to hide out while still maintaining the potential to double my investment under any broad market scenario.
Enterprise Group fits that bill. The Company is a niche energy service company that provides site infrastructure services to remote western Canadian production sites for pipelines, construction and oil and gas sectors in western Canada. I believe Enterprise is a fantastic and deeply overlooked company fit for retail investors (like me) who have the ability to enter a position ahead of institutions catching hold of the name.
The core thesis on Enterprise is:
- Low correlation to broad markets
- High growth and 30% cash flow yield
- Healthy balance sheet providing ~$20M in dry powder for potential non-dilutive M&A
- Share buyback in place to support stock
- Unique low-emission fleet of equipment to grow market share
- Structural market expansion
History
Enterprise was founded in 2004, though as it stands today, is a much leaner and higher growth business compared to what it was in the last bull market for energy in 2008-2014. Where many competitors went out of business during the bear market between 2014-2021, Enterprise wisely divested from lower margin business units, preserved its balance sheet and due to its unique fleet of equipment – was able to maintain cash flow positive during this time. M&A is part of the corporate DNA of Enterprise and has had a successful track record on that front.
While others were still reeling from previous years downturn or still trying to repair their balance sheets in 2020/2021, Enterprise was able to utilize the strength of its balance sheet and positive cash flows to countercyclically invest into new business units to position themselves for the eventual return of energy markets we are now experiencing. A great example of this is the launch of Evolution Power in 2022, which offers a fleet of low-emission microgrids that power the entire production site with natural gas, replacing diesel generators. In doing so, EP reduces CO2 emissions by 30%, gives Enterprise higher margins, is safer and more efficient for the customer. As one of the few “green options” in the energy sector, they are becoming the first choice for larger oil and gas clients subject to Canada’s “heavy emitter” penalties.
Market
The large majority of Enterprise’s sales are derived from western Canadian energy producers, with a greater share of natural gas producers compared to oil producers within its book of clients. Though Enterprise profits have less commodity risk than their actual producing clients, the Company nevertheless is derivatively exposed to energy prices (though I believe there are some factors that reduce the correlation that I will get into later). After years of producers not investing into large exploration projects due to ESG mandates, regulations and low prices, the outlook on energy markets looks extremely promising for producers and has already begun to see a notable uptick in production levels that are expected to continue for a market that looks undersupplied in years ahead.
More specifically to Enterprise’s western Canadian market, there are some very visible demand drivers on the horizon based on new pipeline capacity that provide a near certain increase in demand for services like Enterprise. This demand is structured within tens of billions of dollars of sunk infrastructure capital to provide a roadmap of oil and gas (mostly gas) production expansion in western Canada. Beginning in 2023 with the completion of NGTL network expansion (gas) and TMX pipeline (oil), there will continue to be major new export capacity to come online nearly every year this decade, with recent first nations LNG projects advancing on the west coast.
For Canadian gas producers, the pipelines will allow them to access higher priced Asian markets, where prices are often multiples of those received in Canada or the US. You can bet there is going to be prompt increases to production to ship whatever they can to those markets, given the preferred economics.
Financials
Enterprise just recently released their full year 2022 financials March 20, 2023, where they posted fantastic results. Rather than do a deep dive into financials today, will simply share some important highlights and suggest reviewing their financials below: (https://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00020838)
https://preview.redd.it/ea50sup8ospa1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f5c7ac56063d95dcd54a4a3d5b09bb337cb12de
Additional items:
- Bought back 1.8M shares in 2022
- Secured US OTC listing to increase access to US investors
- Renewed buyback program
- Available tax losses of $0.17/share
- Purchased $5.6M of new equipment
- Subsequently signed one of largest contracts in company history in Jan 2023
Share Structure
Enterprise currently has 50.3M shares outstanding, with another 5M options exercisable at $0.45. Notably, management/board were buyers in the open market over the last few years and now hold over 40% of all shares outstanding.
This is where I think it gets uniquely attractive for us retail investors.
Since the last energy cycle, nearly all of the research analysts that covered the sector have moved on, meaning the few analysts left covering the space are focused on large-cap players and there are none covering companies the size of Enterprise. There is a window for retail to build a position in a hugely profitable company with a tight share structure subject to a potential squeeze before institutions begin to take notice.
Finally – and maybe most importantly – 2022 saw a unique trading dynamic occur due to a large shareholder selling down their position. This shareholder accidentally accumulated a >10% ownership position, unknowingly triggering a requirement to file any purchase/sale of stock (see sedi filings to confirm). That shareholder then spent the entire year reducing their position below 10% but because there was not a large float of shares trading hands, effectively put a ceiling on the stock the entire year and single-handedly compressed the multiple. This does not appear to have been done with ill intent but explains why the stock bounced between a floor of around $0.38 (supported by the buyback) and $0.42 (where the shareholder was selling) despite everything going right for the company operationally. In January, the company bought back the final tranche of shares needed to get that shareholder below the 10% threshold, thereby clearing the way for share price to better track the improving cash flow of the company.
Valuation
Enterprise is currently trading at a deeply discounted valuation and historically low multiple, which is ironic considering this may be the best market they've ever operated in. As a particular point of reference, a comparison below for the 2020-2022 periods for EV/EBITDA and some other metrics that could influence the deserved multiple such as growth, profitability, and credit risk. I’ve also already listed a few reasons to be bullish on their future market (pipelines coming online beginning this year), which is consistent with management’s outlook from their MD&A that “…customers have indicated they will continue to operate at increased activities through the remainder of the year”. Though a 10-11x multiple shouldn't be expected moving forward, you can see the impact of having a large shareholder exiting with a small float and how a lack of share price movement can lose investor attention. Over the course of a year, Enterprise added over $5M in EBITDA (+175%) and barely saw its valuation change at all!
*2022 year using current share price
At a current 4.2x EV/EBITDA, Enterprise is trading far below the 6x it has traded in previous cycles and which seems very reasonable as a base case scenario. It would take very little notional buying for that re-rate to occur and for those able to establish a position at these prices, it would represent a 74% return.
https://preview.redd.it/8ra74fvbospa1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=660dd45a56abdf0c798057de86fde7b49a02b6e4
Finally, if Enterprise is seen through a different valuation lens**, the company just released in their earnings that equity holders would be due $0.68/share ($0.39 current share price) if the company simply sold all of their equipment at book value.** Multiple arguments to show that Enterprise is undervalued.
Outlook
Enterprise has a strong outlook on market fundamentals to support top line growth, increasing pricing power to maintain/increase margins and new revenue potential coming online with equipment additions.
Given history of M&A activity, balance sheet flexibility and the fact some targets are still not fully recovered from 2014-2021 period, it would be very surprising if the company did not make one or more acquisitions in the near-future. Management has said as much on their recent twitter spaces interview.
Fortunately for equity holders, management does not have to dilute shareholders while its equity remains undervalued. With $20M in unused credit at their disposal (their current market cap), they would have the ability to make a material acquisition without needing any equity at all. Even if they were to make an even larger acquisition, their debt providers are Ninepoint Partners (via Waygar Capital), who are home to none other than Eric Nuttall, who is the largest and most bullish energy fund manager on earth. You can bet that if the right target came along with the right assets/cash flow, Ninepoint would be more than happy to increase the size of that facility if they aren’t able to secure some seller's financing. If we assume a slight liquidity discount on a PrivateCo acquisition, $20M at 3x EV/EBITDA could buy around $6-7M of incremental EBITDA, effectively doubling the “cash flow” of the company before considering any synergies. Prospect of cross-selling new rental equipment would be high.
If something like this came to pass and they grew to a $15M EBITDA business, there would undoubtedly be a whole new supply of small institutions that would be interested and could be an attractive buyout candidate for private equity, who they’re currently competing with for acquisitions.
Risk
Commodity Risk:
This being the most obvious risk to the company. If we were to go back to the dark ages (2014-2021), there would be a material impact on Enterprise financials. I believe commodity risk for Enterprise is mitigated for 3 reasons:
No doubt we are entering a period of uncertainty, with global liquidity being reduced and the risk of recession on the horizon. I think this should be viewed in two ways:
Summary
I own shares in Enterprise. This is not financial advise. Please do your own due diligence.
submitted by BadTakeBrian to OTCstocks [link] [comments]
I should start by saying that the search for a company like Enterprise began under the following pretense: I have a bearish view of where I think broad markets are going by the end of 2023 and wanted somewhere to hide out while still maintaining the potential to double my investment under any broad market scenario.
Enterprise Group fits that bill. The Company is a niche energy service company that provides site infrastructure services to remote western Canadian production sites for pipelines, construction and oil and gas sectors in western Canada. I believe Enterprise is a fantastic and deeply overlooked company fit for retail investors (like me) who have the ability to enter a position ahead of institutions catching hold of the name.
The core thesis on Enterprise is:
- Low correlation to broad markets
- High growth and 30% cash flow yield
- Healthy balance sheet providing ~$20M in dry powder for potential non-dilutive M&A
- Share buyback in place to support stock
- Unique low-emission fleet of equipment to grow market share
- Structural market expansion
History
Enterprise was founded in 2004, though as it stands today, is a much leaner and higher growth business compared to what it was in the last bull market for energy in 2008-2014. Where many competitors went out of business during the bear market between 2014-2021, Enterprise wisely divested from lower margin business units, preserved its balance sheet and due to its unique fleet of equipment – was able to maintain cash flow positive during this time. M&A is part of the corporate DNA of Enterprise and has had a successful track record on that front.
While others were still reeling from previous years downturn or still trying to repair their balance sheets in 2020/2021, Enterprise was able to utilize the strength of its balance sheet and positive cash flows to countercyclically invest into new business units to position themselves for the eventual return of energy markets we are now experiencing. A great example of this is the launch of Evolution Power in 2022, which offers a fleet of low-emission microgrids that power the entire production site with natural gas, replacing diesel generators. In doing so, EP reduces CO2 emissions by 30%, gives Enterprise higher margins, is safer and more efficient for the customer. As one of the few “green options” in the energy sector, they are becoming the first choice for larger oil and gas clients subject to Canada’s “heavy emitter” penalties.
Market
The large majority of Enterprise’s sales are derived from western Canadian energy producers, with a greater share of natural gas producers compared to oil producers within its book of clients. Though Enterprise profits have less commodity risk than their actual producing clients, the Company nevertheless is derivatively exposed to energy prices (though I believe there are some factors that reduce the correlation that I will get into later). After years of producers not investing into large exploration projects due to ESG mandates, regulations and low prices, the outlook on energy markets looks extremely promising for producers and has already begun to see a notable uptick in production levels that are expected to continue for a market that looks undersupplied in years ahead.
More specifically to Enterprise’s western Canadian market, there are some very visible demand drivers on the horizon based on new pipeline capacity that provide a near certain increase in demand for services like Enterprise. This demand is structured within tens of billions of dollars of sunk infrastructure capital to provide a roadmap of oil and gas (mostly gas) production expansion in western Canada. Beginning in 2023 with the completion of NGTL network expansion (gas) and TMX pipeline (oil), there will continue to be major new export capacity to come online nearly every year this decade, with recent first nations LNG projects advancing on the west coast.
For Canadian gas producers, the pipelines will allow them to access higher priced Asian markets, where prices are often multiples of those received in Canada or the US. You can bet there is going to be prompt increases to production to ship whatever they can to those markets, given the preferred economics.
Financials
Enterprise just recently released their full year 2022 financials March 20, 2023, where they posted fantastic results. Rather than do a deep dive into financials today, will simply share some important highlights and suggest reviewing their financials below: (https://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00020838)
https://preview.redd.it/ea50sup8ospa1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=5f5c7ac56063d95dcd54a4a3d5b09bb337cb12de
Additional items:
- Bought back 1.8M shares in 2022
- Secured US OTC listing to increase access to US investors
- Renewed buyback program
- Available tax losses of $0.17/share
- Purchased $5.6M of new equipment
- Subsequently signed one of largest contracts in company history in Jan 2023
Share Structure
Enterprise currently has 50.3M shares outstanding, with another 5M options exercisable at $0.45. Notably, management/board were buyers in the open market over the last few years and now hold over 40% of all shares outstanding.
This is where I think it gets uniquely attractive for us retail investors.
Since the last energy cycle, nearly all of the research analysts that covered the sector have moved on, meaning the few analysts left covering the space are focused on large-cap players and there are none covering companies the size of Enterprise. There is a window for retail to build a position in a hugely profitable company with a tight share structure subject to a potential squeeze before institutions begin to take notice.
Finally – and maybe most importantly – 2022 saw a unique trading dynamic occur due to a large shareholder selling down their position. This shareholder accidentally accumulated a >10% ownership position, unknowingly triggering a requirement to file any purchase/sale of stock (see sedi filings to confirm). That shareholder then spent the entire year reducing their position below 10% but because there was not a large float of shares trading hands, effectively put a ceiling on the stock the entire year and single-handedly compressed the multiple. This does not appear to have been done with ill intent but explains why the stock bounced between a floor of around $0.38 (supported by the buyback) and $0.42 (where the shareholder was selling) despite everything going right for the company operationally. In January, the company bought back the final tranche of shares needed to get that shareholder below the 10% threshold, thereby clearing the way for share price to better track the improving cash flow of the company.
Valuation
Enterprise is currently trading at a deeply discounted valuation and historically low multiple, which is ironic considering this may be the best market they've ever operated in. As a particular point of reference, a comparison below for the 2020-2022 periods for EV/EBITDA and some other metrics that could influence the deserved multiple such as growth, profitability, and credit risk. I’ve also already listed a few reasons to be bullish on their future market (pipelines coming online beginning this year), which is consistent with management’s outlook from their MD&A that “…customers have indicated they will continue to operate at increased activities through the remainder of the year”. Though a 10-11x multiple shouldn't be expected moving forward, you can see the impact of having a large shareholder exiting with a small float and how a lack of share price movement can lose investor attention. Over the course of a year, Enterprise added over $5M in EBITDA (+175%) and barely saw its valuation change at all!
*2022 year using current share price
At a current 4.2x EV/EBITDA, Enterprise is trading far below the 6x it has traded in previous cycles and which seems very reasonable as a base case scenario. It would take very little notional buying for that re-rate to occur and for those able to establish a position at these prices, it would represent a 74% return.
https://preview.redd.it/8ra74fvbospa1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=660dd45a56abdf0c798057de86fde7b49a02b6e4
Finally, if Enterprise is seen through a different valuation lens**, the company just released in their earnings that equity holders would be due $0.68/share ($0.39 current share price) if the company simply sold all of their equipment at book value.** Multiple arguments to show that Enterprise is undervalued.
Outlook
Enterprise has a strong outlook on market fundamentals to support top line growth, increasing pricing power to maintain/increase margins and new revenue potential coming online with equipment additions.
Given history of M&A activity, balance sheet flexibility and the fact some targets are still not fully recovered from 2014-2021 period, it would be very surprising if the company did not make one or more acquisitions in the near-future. Management has said as much on their recent twitter spaces interview.
Fortunately for equity holders, management does not have to dilute shareholders while its equity remains undervalued. With $20M in unused credit at their disposal (their current market cap), they would have the ability to make a material acquisition without needing any equity at all. Even if they were to make an even larger acquisition, their debt providers are Ninepoint Partners (via Waygar Capital), who are home to none other than Eric Nuttall, who is the largest and most bullish energy fund manager on earth. You can bet that if the right target came along with the right assets/cash flow, Ninepoint would be more than happy to increase the size of that facility if they aren’t able to secure some seller's financing. If we assume a slight liquidity discount on a PrivateCo acquisition, $20M at 3x EV/EBITDA could buy around $6-7M of incremental EBITDA, effectively doubling the “cash flow” of the company before considering any synergies. Prospect of cross-selling new rental equipment would be high.
If something like this came to pass and they grew to a $15M EBITDA business, there would undoubtedly be a whole new supply of small institutions that would be interested and could be an attractive buyout candidate for private equity, who they’re currently competing with for acquisitions.
Risk
Commodity Risk:
This being the most obvious risk to the company. If we were to go back to the dark ages (2014-2021), there would be a material impact on Enterprise financials. I believe commodity risk for Enterprise is mitigated for 3 reasons:
- A decade of underinvestment in global energy supplies has the entire spectrum of energy prognosticators projecting supply deficits for oil and continued growth in global natural gas demand. Continued regulatory hurdles, ESG capital restrictions, end of US shale hypergrowth, and return-of-capital mandates by EnergyCo shareholders make it less likely we see reckless supply additions. Adding to that, we’ve now got China reopening, OPEC defending prices, and US supposedly refilling the SPR at some point (we’ll see).
- Infrastructure Developments: Canada has abundant reserves, with some of the cleanest and lowest-cost natural gas in the world with a painful lack of export capacity. A number of pipeline and LNG export facilities are set to come online, incentivizing a production increase to fill that pipeline. To me, this is the most powerful reason why I believe Enterprise has much lower commodity risk and has been repeated by recent research put out by RBC on the prospects of NE BC natural gas outlook.
- Tier 1 Client Book: Enterprise’s clients are some of the largest energy producers in North America, meaning they plan their development programs with a multi-year outlook that is less sensitive to short term price action. Further, many of its clients are actual providing the supply for LNG Canada (Sinopec, Petronas,
No doubt we are entering a period of uncertainty, with global liquidity being reduced and the risk of recession on the horizon. I think this should be viewed in two ways:
- Operations: Looking back, more often than not a significant global recession is more likely to reduce the rate of growth in oil demand rather than actually reducing demand. Natural gas is mostly used for heating and electricity generation, making it relatively inelastic as well. Global GDP is also more evenly spread between OECD and non-OECD, meaning growing countries like India will be less responsive to tightening financial conditions.
- Share Price: Enterprise is tracking towards a trailing 4x EV/EBITDA, with structural growth catalysts on the horizon (ie. pipelines) and excess cash flow available for buybacks. Even in a market panic, it is likely cash flows can continue to grow, providing continued support to the share price via buybacks.
- Recent meltdown in energy markets had almost no impact on Enterprise share price and would suspect that increased buybacks would be there for support if share price were to slide further.
Summary
- Operating conditions look very strong for the company based on energy cycle and the foundation of new pipeline-related production increases in western Canada.
- Enterprise is a pure-play on western Canada with major well-capitalized nat gas clients poised for growth.
- Small size and cap structure provide potential for significant torque in share price.
- Enterprise has debt flexibility such that they don’t need to dilute equity at these valuations if M&A opportunities arise.
- Extremely profitable with 30%+ cash flow yield and optionality for buybacks or further investment in expanding equipment fleet for evolution power.
- Significant selling pressure from large shareholder has now ended after tendering shares to treasury in January 2023.
- A single large new shareholder has potential to re-rate the stock to base case of 6x EV/EBITDA multiple.
- Equity re-rate and M&A could see this company become very large, very quickly – drawing further flows of capital to the name at sufficient scale or be a prime takeout candidate for PE.
I own shares in Enterprise. This is not financial advise. Please do your own due diligence.
2023.03.25 03:10 BadTakeBrian Enterprise Group ($E.TO, $ETOLF.OTC): Cash Flow Machine, Deep Value, Squeeze Potential
 | Intro submitted by BadTakeBrian to 10xPennyStocks [link] [comments] I should start by saying that the search for a company like Enterprise began under the following pretense: I have a bearish view of where I think broad markets are going by the end of 2023 and wanted somewhere to hide out while still maintaining the potential to double my investment under any broad market scenario. Enterprise Group fits that bill. The Company is a niche energy service company that provides site infrastructure services to remote western Canadian production sites for pipelines, construction and oil and gas sectors in western Canada. I believe Enterprise is a fantastic and deeply overlooked company fit for retail investors (like me) who have the ability to enter a position ahead of institutions catching hold of the name. The core thesis on Enterprise is: - Low correlation to broad markets - High growth and 30% cash flow yield - Healthy balance sheet providing ~$20M in dry powder for potential non-dilutive M&A - Share buyback in place to support stock - Unique low-emission fleet of equipment to grow market share - Structural market expansion History Enterprise was founded in 2004, though as it stands today, is a much leaner and higher growth business compared to what it was in the last bull market for energy in 2008-2014. Where many competitors went out of business during the bear market between 2014-2021, Enterprise wisely divested from lower margin business units, preserved its balance sheet and due to its unique fleet of equipment – was able to maintain cash flow positive during this time. M&A is part of the corporate DNA of Enterprise and has had a successful track record on that front. While others were still reeling from previous years downturn or still trying to repair their balance sheets in 2020/2021, Enterprise was able to utilize the strength of its balance sheet and positive cash flows to countercyclically invest into new business units to position themselves for the eventual return of energy markets we are now experiencing. A great example of this is the launch of Evolution Power in 2022, which offers a fleet of low-emission microgrids that power the entire production site with natural gas, replacing diesel generators. In doing so, EP reduces CO2 emissions by 30%, gives Enterprise higher margins, is safer and more efficient for the customer. As one of the few “green options” in the energy sector, they are becoming the first choice for larger oil and gas clients subject to Canada’s “heavy emitter” penalties. Market The large majority of Enterprise’s sales are derived from western Canadian energy producers, with a greater share of natural gas producers compared to oil producers within its book of clients. Though Enterprise profits have less commodity risk than their actual producing clients, the Company nevertheless is derivatively exposed to energy prices (though I believe there are some factors that reduce the correlation that I will get into later). After years of producers not investing into large exploration projects due to ESG mandates, regulations and low prices, the outlook on energy markets looks extremely promising for producers and has already begun to see a notable uptick in production levels that are expected to continue for a market that looks undersupplied in years ahead. More specifically to Enterprise’s western Canadian market, there are some very visible demand drivers on the horizon based on new pipeline capacity that provide a near certain increase in demand for services like Enterprise. This demand is structured within tens of billions of dollars of sunk infrastructure capital to provide a roadmap of oil and gas (mostly gas) production expansion in western Canada. Beginning in 2023 with the completion of NGTL network expansion (gas) and TMX pipeline (oil), there will continue to be major new export capacity to come online nearly every year this decade, with recent first nations LNG projects advancing on the west coast. For Canadian gas producers, the pipelines will allow them to access higher priced Asian markets, where prices are often multiples of those received in Canada or the US. You can bet there is going to be prompt increases to production to ship whatever they can to those markets, given the preferred economics. Financials Enterprise just recently released their full year 2022 financials March 20, 2023, where they posted fantastic results. Rather than do a deep dive into financials today, will simply share some important highlights and suggest reviewing their financials below: (https://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00020838) https://preview.redd.it/ymc70id9nspa1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=26955ea33a9149480d2629bea8fa7f8f0c7acb48 Additional items: - Bought back 1.8M shares in 2022 - Secured US OTC listing to increase access to US investors - Renewed buyback program - Available tax losses of $0.17/share - Purchased $5.6M of new equipment - Subsequently signed one of largest contracts in company history in Jan 2023 Share Structure Enterprise currently has 50.3M shares outstanding, with another 5M options exercisable at $0.45. Notably, management/board were buyers in the open market over the last few years and now hold over 40% of all shares outstanding. This is where I think it gets uniquely attractive for us retail investors. Since the last energy cycle, nearly all of the research analysts that covered the sector have moved on, meaning the few analysts left covering the space are focused on large-cap players and there are none covering companies the size of Enterprise. There is a window for retail to build a position in a hugely profitable company with a tight share structure subject to a potential squeeze before institutions begin to take notice. Finally – and maybe most importantly – 2022 saw a unique trading dynamic occur due to a large shareholder selling down their position. This shareholder accidentally accumulated a >10% ownership position, unknowingly triggering a requirement to file any purchase/sale of stock (see sedi filings to confirm). That shareholder then spent the entire year reducing their position below 10% but because there was not a large float of shares trading hands, effectively put a ceiling on the stock the entire year and single-handedly compressed the multiple. This does not appear to have been done with ill intent but explains why the stock bounced between a floor of around $0.38 (supported by the buyback) and $0.42 (where the shareholder was selling) despite everything going right for the company operationally. In January, the company bought back the final tranche of shares needed to get that shareholder below the 10% threshold, thereby clearing the way for share price to better track the improving cash flow of the company. Valuation Enterprise is currently trading at a deeply discounted valuation and historically low multiple, which is ironic considering this may be the best market they've ever operated in. As a particular point of reference, a comparison below for the 2020-2022 periods for EV/EBITDA and some other metrics that could influence the deserved multiple such as growth, profitability, and credit risk. I’ve also already listed a few reasons to be bullish on their future market (pipelines coming online beginning this year), which is consistent with management’s outlook from their MD&A that “…customers have indicated they will continue to operate at increased activities through the remainder of the year”. Though a 10-11x multiple shouldn't be expected moving forward, you can see the impact of having a large shareholder exiting with a small float and how a lack of share price movement can lose investor attention. Over the course of a year, Enterprise added over $5M in EBITDA (+175%) and barely saw its valuation change at all! *2022 year using current share price At a current 4.2x EV/EBITDA, Enterprise is trading far below the 6x it has traded in previous cycles and which seems very reasonable as a base case scenario. It would take very little notional buying for that re-rate to occur and for those able to establish a position at these prices, it would represent a 74% return. https://preview.redd.it/spnyv47dnspa1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=652a9ce3e786aa5b88a9c4f8a0ec94d8a9b62aa7 Finally, if Enterprise is seen through a different valuation lens**, the company just released in their earnings that equity holders would be due $0.68/share ($0.39 current share price) if the company simply sold all of their equipment at book value.** Multiple arguments to show that Enterprise is undervalued. Outlook Enterprise has a strong outlook on market fundamentals to support top line growth, increasing pricing power to maintain/increase margins and new revenue potential coming online with equipment additions. Given history of M&A activity, balance sheet flexibility and the fact some targets are still not fully recovered from 2014-2021 period, it would be very surprising if the company did not make one or more acquisitions in the near-future. Management has said as much on their recent twitter spaces interview. Fortunately for equity holders, management does not have to dilute shareholders while its equity remains undervalued. With $20M in unused credit at their disposal (their current market cap), they would have the ability to make a material acquisition without needing any equity at all. Even if they were to make an even larger acquisition, their debt providers are Ninepoint Partners (via Waygar Capital), who are home to none other than Eric Nuttall, who is the largest and most bullish energy fund manager on earth. You can bet that if the right target came along with the right assets/cash flow, Ninepoint would be more than happy to increase the size of that facility if they aren’t able to secure some seller's financing. If we assume a slight liquidity discount on a PrivateCo acquisition, $20M at 3x EV/EBITDA could buy around $6-7M of incremental EBITDA, effectively doubling the “cash flow” of the company before considering any synergies. Prospect of cross-selling new rental equipment would be high. If something like this came to pass and they grew to a $15M EBITDA business, there would undoubtedly be a whole new supply of small institutions that would be interested and could be an attractive buyout candidate for private equity, who they’re currently competing with for acquisitions. Risk Commodity Risk: This being the most obvious risk to the company. If we were to go back to the dark ages (2014-2021), there would be a material impact on Enterprise financials. I believe commodity risk for Enterprise is mitigated for 3 reasons:
No doubt we are entering a period of uncertainty, with global liquidity being reduced and the risk of recession on the horizon. I think this should be viewed in two ways:
Summary
I own shares in Enterprise. This is not financial advise. Please do your own due diligence. |
2023.03.25 03:08 sargassopearl Help! Did I ruin my oven by using Easy Off?
I followed the directions on the can and allowed the foam to sit for 20-30 mins since I had some heavily baked on grease spots in my oven, but now I’m worried I’ve stripped off the glossy finish in the oven by doing so. I’ve wiped away what I thought was cleaner residue several times (with water and dish soap), but all the sprayed surfaces look “raw” once they dry off 😭
submitted by sargassopearl to CleaningTips [link] [comments]
2023.03.25 02:58 BadTakeBrian Enterprise Group ($E.TO, $ETOLF.OTC): Cash Flow Machine, Deep Value, Squeeze Potential
 | Intro submitted by BadTakeBrian to PennyHaven [link] [comments] I should start by saying that the search for a company like Enterprise began under the following pretense: I have a bearish view of where I think broad markets are going by the end of 2023 and wanted somewhere to hide out while still maintaining the potential to double my investment under any broad market scenario. Enterprise Group fits that bill. The Company is a niche energy service company that provides site infrastructure services to remote western Canadian production sites for pipelines, construction and oil and gas sectors in western Canada. I believe Enterprise is a fantastic and deeply overlooked company fit for retail investors (like me) who have the ability to enter a position ahead of institutions catching hold of the name. The core thesis on Enterprise is: - Low correlation to broad markets - High growth and 30% cash flow yield - Healthy balance sheet providing ~$20M in dry powder for potential non-dilutive M&A - Share buyback in place to support stock - Unique low-emission fleet of equipment to grow market share - Structural market expansion History Enterprise was founded in 2004, though as it stands today, is a much leaner and higher growth business compared to what it was in the last bull market for energy in 2008-2014. Where many competitors went out of business during the bear market between 2014-2021, Enterprise wisely divested from lower margin business units, preserved its balance sheet and due to its unique fleet of equipment – was able to maintain cash flow positive during this time. M&A is part of the corporate DNA of Enterprise and has had a successful track record on that front. While others were still reeling from previous years downturn or still trying to repair their balance sheets in 2020/2021, Enterprise was able to utilize the strength of its balance sheet and positive cash flows to countercyclically invest into new business units to position themselves for the eventual return of energy markets we are now experiencing. A great example of this is the launch of Evolution Power in 2022, which offers a fleet of low-emission microgrids that power the entire production site with natural gas, replacing diesel generators. In doing so, EP reduces CO2 emissions by 30%, gives Enterprise higher margins, is safer and more efficient for the customer. As one of the few “green options” in the energy sector, they are becoming the first choice for larger oil and gas clients subject to Canada’s “heavy emitter” penalties. Market The large majority of Enterprise’s sales are derived from western Canadian energy producers, with a greater share of natural gas producers compared to oil producers within its book of clients. Though Enterprise profits have less commodity risk than their actual producing clients, the Company nevertheless is derivatively exposed to energy prices (though I believe there are some factors that reduce the correlation that I will get into later). After years of producers not investing into large exploration projects due to ESG mandates, regulations and low prices, the outlook on energy markets looks extremely promising for producers and has already begun to see a notable uptick in production levels that are expected to continue for a market that looks undersupplied in years ahead. More specifically to Enterprise’s western Canadian market, there are some very visible demand drivers on the horizon based on new pipeline capacity that provide a near certain increase in demand for services like Enterprise. This demand is structured within tens of billions of dollars of sunk infrastructure capital to provide a roadmap of oil and gas (mostly gas) production expansion in western Canada. Beginning in 2023 with the completion of NGTL network expansion (gas) and TMX pipeline (oil), there will continue to be major new export capacity to come online nearly every year this decade, with recent first nations LNG projects advancing on the west coast. For Canadian gas producers, the pipelines will allow them to access higher priced Asian markets, where prices are often multiples of those received in Canada or the US. You can bet there is going to be prompt increases to production to ship whatever they can to those markets, given the preferred economics. Financials Enterprise just recently released their full year 2022 financials March 20, 2023, where they posted fantastic results. Rather than do a deep dive into financials today, will simply share some important highlights and suggest reviewing their financials below: (https://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00020838) https://preview.redd.it/2apvhzq3lspa1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f98336dfb84cfcc9cc3d75aecd6d4c464593ea9 Additional items: - Bought back 1.8M shares in 2022 - Secured US OTC listing to increase access to US investors - Renewed buyback program - Available tax losses of $0.17/share - Purchased $5.6M of new equipment - Subsequently signed one of largest contracts in company history in Jan 2023 Share Structure Enterprise currently has 50.3M shares outstanding, with another 5M options exercisable at $0.45. Notably, management/board were buyers in the open market over the last few years and now hold over 40% of all shares outstanding. This is where I think it gets uniquely attractive for us retail investors. Since the last energy cycle, nearly all of the research analysts that covered the sector have moved on, meaning the few analysts left covering the space are focused on large-cap players and there are none covering companies the size of Enterprise. There is a window for retail to build a position in a hugely profitable company with a tight share structure subject to a potential squeeze before institutions begin to take notice. Finally – and maybe most importantly – 2022 saw a unique trading dynamic occur due to a large shareholder selling down their position. This shareholder accidentally accumulated a >10% ownership position, unknowingly triggering a requirement to file any purchase/sale of stock (see sedi filings to confirm). That shareholder then spent the entire year reducing their position below 10% but because there was not a large float of shares trading hands, effectively put a ceiling on the stock the entire year and single-handedly compressed the multiple. This does not appear to have been done with ill intent but explains why the stock bounced between a floor of around $0.38 (supported by the buyback) and $0.42 (where the shareholder was selling) despite everything going right for the company operationally. In January, the company bought back the final tranche of shares needed to get that shareholder below the 10% threshold, thereby clearing the way for share price to better track the improving cash flow of the company. Valuation Enterprise is currently trading at a deeply discounted valuation and historically low multiple, which is ironic considering this may be the best market they've ever operated in. As a particular point of reference, a comparison below for the 2020-2022 periods for EV/EBITDA and some other metrics that could influence the deserved multiple such as growth, profitability, and credit risk. I’ve also already listed a few reasons to be bullish on their future market (pipelines coming online beginning this year), which is consistent with management’s outlook from their MD&A that “…customers have indicated they will continue to operate at increased activities through the remainder of the year”. Though a 10-11x multiple shouldn't be expected moving forward, you can see the impact of having a large shareholder exiting with a small float and how a lack of share price movement can lose investor attention. Over the course of a year, Enterprise added over $5M in EBITDA (+175%) and barely saw its valuation change at all! *2022 year using current share price At a current 4.2x EV/EBITDA, Enterprise is trading far below the 6x it has traded in previous cycles and which seems very reasonable as a base case scenario. It would take very little notional buying for that re-rate to occur and for those able to establish a position at these prices, it would represent a 74% return. https://preview.redd.it/nfwcfd2zkspa1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f214d0505cc1df9f2d87f84c0e4727ed7459c0d Finally, if Enterprise is seen through a different valuation lens**, the company just released in their earnings that equity holders would be due $0.68/share ($0.39 current share price) if the company simply sold all of their equipment at book value.** Multiple arguments to show that Enterprise is undervalued. Outlook Enterprise has a strong outlook on market fundamentals to support top line growth, increasing pricing power to maintain/increase margins and new revenue potential coming online with equipment additions. Given history of M&A activity, balance sheet flexibility and the fact some targets are still not fully recovered from 2014-2021 period, it would be very surprising if the company did not make one or more acquisitions in the near-future. Management has said as much on their recent twitter spaces interview. Fortunately for equity holders, management does not have to dilute shareholders while its equity remains undervalued. With $20M in unused credit at their disposal (their current market cap), they would have the ability to make a material acquisition without needing any equity at all. Even if they were to make an even larger acquisition, their debt providers are Ninepoint Partners (via Waygar Capital), who are home to none other than Eric Nuttall, who is the largest and most bullish energy fund manager on earth. You can bet that if the right target came along with the right assets/cash flow, Ninepoint would be more than happy to increase the size of that facility if they aren’t able to secure some seller's financing. If we assume a slight liquidity discount on a PrivateCo acquisition, $20M at 3x EV/EBITDA could buy around $6-7M of incremental EBITDA, effectively doubling the “cash flow” of the company before considering any synergies. Prospect of cross-selling new rental equipment would be high. If something like this came to pass and they grew to a $15M EBITDA business, there would undoubtedly be a whole new supply of small institutions that would be interested and could be an attractive buyout candidate for private equity, who they’re currently competing with for acquisitions. Risk Commodity Risk: This being the most obvious risk to the company. If we were to go back to the dark ages (2014-2021), there would be a material impact on Enterprise financials. I believe commodity risk for Enterprise is mitigated for 3 reasons:
No doubt we are entering a period of uncertainty, with global liquidity being reduced and the risk of recession on the horizon. I think this should be viewed in two ways:
Summary
I own shares in Enterprise. This is not financial advise. Please do your own due diligence. |
2023.03.25 02:08 the1895bigboy Found some in the wild!
 | submitted by the1895bigboy to GooglyEyes [link] [comments] |
2023.03.25 02:07 Saturdead The Drainpipe Siren
The summer I turned 10 was the best time of my life. For years I’d had trouble making friends with other girls, and out of nowhere I was accepted into a group of boys. We would ride our bikes everywhere, play games, and sit up all night just talking about superheroes. I loved it, and I started enjoying coming to school.
That summer was the first summer we went to Everett’s cabin. We biked up there with his dad and spent three days hiking, fishing, telling stories, building a treehouse, and chowing down on hot dogs. It was amazing, and probably the first time in my life where I truly felt like part of a group.
For the next few years, we went back up there every summer. Sometimes we’d get another member, sometimes we’d lose one. People came and went, but we biked up there every summer nonetheless.
They became my best friends. I was one of the “original members” alongside Everett and Sam, but one year we had Lewis, another year there was Owen, and so on. But me, Everett, and Sam? We were always there. The originals.
By the time we all turned 14, there was another girl joining the group; Sam’s girlfriend Josslyn. I’d had some trouble getting along with other girls, so I was a bit hesitant about having Josslyn come along. But I was hilariously wrong. Within a couple of weeks, Josslyn became my best friend. She was like the sister I never had.
The year we turned 16 was the last time we would go there as a group. By then, everyone was growing up. Some were going to college; others were getting a job. Hell, Sam and Josslyn had just broken up and could barely be in the same room. Spending the summer in Everett’s cabin became one of those things that you just stop doing. We promised we’d go back there someday and celebrate summer the right way, knowing full well that would probably never happen.
And then, nothing. And as with all names and faces, they started growing distant. We kept in touch every now and then, but Sam, Everett and Josslyn all went on with their lives. I did too.
That was until a few years ago, when we all turned 30.
By then, Sam was about to move out of state. His startup company had gained some traction, and they were moving their main office. He was hitting the big leagues.
Josslyn was planning a move to Scotland. She’d met this guy at the university that she fell head over heels in love with, and the two of them’d had a long-distance relationship for close to a decade.
Everett, well, he’d tried to play the family man. He had a four-year old son and a two-year old girl with a woman who was divorcing him. Oof.
And me? Well, I wasn’t dealing with my aging very well. I’ve had anxiety all my life and haven’t celebrated a birthday since I was 14. I can barely look myself in the mirror, horrified of the possibility of seeing a grey hair. I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, truth be told, and I imagine feeling all kinds of cramps and pains because of my age. And yes, I know 30 isn’t that old. Doesn’t matter.
But that summer, Everett sent us a message out of nowhere. His family was selling the cabin, and he figured one more trip down memory lane would do us all some good. The whole area was being sold off to a logging company at the end of summer. Personally, I just think the divorce was getting to him.
At first, I wasn’t going to accept. But after seeing both Sam and Josslyn agreeing to come, I couldn’t say no. Maybe it would distract me from turning 30.
So one sunny day in late June I drove down from Morgantown back home to Juniper (WV), not knowing what to expect. I figured I might get a nice weekend out of it.
And as I met up with Sam and Everett, it was as if nothing had changed. They hugged me. We laughed, we joked around, and we laughed some more. Everett had rented us mountain bikes. I got the blue one.
Sure, they looked a bit different. Sam had put on a few pounds and had a thick pair of glasses. He was already sweating. Everett, who used to have dreadlocks, had this short and neat office-type haircut, and his eyes looked darker. But that was all just appearance; they were the same guys. Same humor, same smiles, same favorite superheroes. Wonderful.
We stopped at the supermarket. I was comparing beef jerky prices when Sam walked up to me.
“Josslyn went on ahead,” he explained. “The roads are all dug up, so we’re taking the tunnel.”
“The Rosewater tunnel? By the railroad?” I asked.
“Yeah,” nodded Sam. “Shouldn’t take long. Josslyn is already up there.”
Made sense to me. Josslyn was the outdoorsy type. She was probably up there making a fire by rubbing sticks together or something. But just in case, I bought myself a Firestarter. You never know.
And then we were off. Riding bikes with the same people, down the same roads. Sure, it all looked different, but it really wasn’t. After all these years, I was still just me and the guys. For a moment, I felt this surge of optimism; like everything, somehow, might turn out all right.
Everett took point. We followed a trail deep into the pine forest, sweating under the summer sun. The canopy was a blessing, hiding us from the afternoon heat. It took us a bit over an hour to find the railroad tracks. We followed them north. Sam was sweating like he’d never even seen a bike before.
Then we got to the tunnel. The old Rosewater tunnel wasn’t long, but it was old. Everyone knew about it, but it was the kind of place that parents refused to let their kids go near. The place was probably covered in mold. Still, biking through it wouldn’t be a problem. You could feel the draft coming through.
The tunnel had a slight curve to it, so we couldn’t see the other side. Still, Everett took point and howled with joy as he entered. The echo bounced off the walls, reaching into the mountain. Sam followed suit, shrieking just as loud. We dove deep into the dark with the rhythmic thumping of the railroad tracks beneath us.
Our bike lights shone as bright as they could, but the tunnel swallowed them. It was getting colder and colder, almost to the point of my breath showing. Little dust particles danced in the weak light. The sound of spinning bike chains and thumping wheels echoed, and the air tasted like old moisture.
Suddenly, Everett stopped. Then Sam. And soon, I could see why.
We were in the middle of the tunnel, and there was something covering the ground.
Snow.
We were all standing there dumbfounded. Snow? In late June? That didn’t make a lick of sense.
“That’s just weird,” said Sam. “Let’s keep going.”
“Wait,” said Everett.
He stepped off his bike and walked around for a bit. I leaned against my handlebar, feeling the weight of my backpack. I hadn’t even noticed how out of breath I was. Everett leaned down, looking at the snow.
“What’s up?” Sam asked. “We going?”
“Yeah, yeah,” nodded Everett. “It’s just… I dunno.”
“Dunno what?”
“Like… where’re the tracks?”
“You’re sitting on ‘em” I added. “What’s the deal?”
“No, Josslyn’s tracks.”
Now I could definitely see my own breath. And Everett was right, the snow was undisturbed. Josslyn couldn’t have come through there, unless the snow had recently settled. But what, an inch and a half of powder snow in late June, in less than a day? Nah.
Everett got back on his bike.
“Let’s just keep going.”
We biked through the snow. About ten minutes later, we got to the edge of the tunnel.
It’d collapsed in on itself.
The ceiling had caved in and filled the entire tunnel with a steep slant of solid rock chunks. It didn’t look recent either.
We just turned around. There was no reason for us to keep pushing forward, so we decided to just go back out and follow the (if somewhat broken) main road instead. We had bikes, we could go pretty much anywhere. Still, I couldn’t help but notice how Everett seemed a bit distraught. We all were.
On our way back through the snow, I got the sense that something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. But right then and there, I was just happy we were leaving.
Except we didn’t get far.
The path we came in through had also collapsed.
“Did we make a… a wrong turn?” Sam asked. “I thought this… this was just a straight line.”
“It is,” said Everett. “This, uh… this doesn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” I gasped. “I didn’t hear a goddamn thing.”
“This is old. There’s dust. It didn’t just collapse, this is… ,” insisted Everett.
“So we must’ve gotten turned around somewhere,” smiled Sam. “So we backtrack.”
It took us about 45 minutes to move from one end of the tunnel to the other; but both ends were definitely collapsed. How we entered in the first place was mind boggling. It didn’t make sense.
At some point, we just stopped. We stepped off our bikes and sat down. Sam used his phone as a flashlight, illuminating the dancing dust particles. The air tasted stale.
“No bars,” Sam said. “Tunnels suck.”
“It doesn’t make sense!” groaned Everett. “We got in, we can get out!”
“How?!” I asked, throwing my arms out. “I’m not seeing any exits! It… it fell!”
“That’s impossible!” spat Everett. “There would be a… a goddamn ear-bursting pressure! There’d be so much dust we… we wouldn’t be able to breathe! And there wouldn’t be goddamn snow all over the ground!”
We tried to get our phones to work. We tried moving the rocks, but the thick moisture in the air had frozen; making them all stick together like bricks and mortar. There was no way.
We wasted hours, and the temperature just kept dropping. I’d started shivering, and Sam’s breath had frozen into little icicles in his beard. Everett paced back and forth, trying to come up with a plan.
The snow was either expanding, or we kept coming back to it. Either way, it was everywhere. And the temperature kept dropping; fast.
At one point, that strange feeling in my stomach came back to me. I removed my bike light and used it as a torch. I noticed something in the snow.
I could see our tracks. Both from our bikes, and our shoes. But there was something else; a slight impression. Two thin parallel lines, running next to the wall. They twisted and turned at times, but I couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be. I called Sam and Everett over to help me, but we suddenly got distracted.
Somewhere deep in the tunnel, I heard something.
A voice.
“You should be helping me.”
It came from further in. Without a doubt in my mind, and after all these years, I could still recognize Josslyn’s voice. We tried to pinpoint where it came from, but the tunnel made it impossible.
“Joss?” Sam called out. “Joss, you there?”
Nothing. We looked at one another. It took Everett a few moments to even attempt to accept this.
“Joss!” Everett finally called out “Josslyn!”
Still, nothing.
We looked for her. I could feel myself growing more desperate as the air got colder. My teeth had started to chatter, and no amount of rubbing my arms changed a thing. My hairs were standing at attention, as if listening for warmth.
Sam and Everett kept calling out to her, but we got no response. And all over the snow I kept seeing these two parallel lines, just barely scraping the top of the snow. Either they’d been there for a while, or whatever was making them were something extraordinarily light. But there was no way of telling where it came from.
I have no idea how many hours we spent walking up and down that freezing tunnel. At some point, we all gathered in a circle and wrapped ourselves in sleeping bags. I tried to use my Firestarter, but we didn’t have much to burn. We piled up some of our extra clothes and spent the better part of an hour setting it on fire. It burned for less than ten minutes.
At some point, we just stopped trying. Our hands were raw, and I started having cold sweats. We’d turned off the lights to save on battery, but my restless eyes kept moving. I could feel myself going cross-eyed, my mind confused by the pressing dark.
There was too much ground to cover. There might be some side tunnel that we might’ve missed, but we were losing hope. I didn’t know what to make of it. Sam and Everett had gone through several cycles of arguing, making a desperate effort, being anxiously hopeful, and then back to arguing. Now they were just quiet.
I would’ve preferred an argument.
“You… should be helping me.”
We all looked up. It was distant, but not as distant as last time. I could hear Sam shuffling as he got up. He called out to Josslyn again and again, but there was no response. Sam was growing more and more desperate, and his screams got louder. At some point, he stopped calling out to her; he just screamed.
The arguing started again as Everett tried to shut him up. But I heard something. I looked up, concentrating on the sound. There was a slight reverb, like the sound bouncing off something metallic.
I put my bike light back on and looked up, letting the bright cone answer my question.
There were drainpipes running along the ceiling of the tunnel.
“Some… some kind of drainage, or a run-off,” said Sam, looking up. “That’s gotta… wait. This wasn’t at the entrance.”
“So it started further in,” I said. “Maybe there’s a maintenance area.”
At that, Everett got up.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah, that makes, uh… that makes sense.”
We followed the pipes, and I couldn’t help but notice that the parallel lines in the snow that seemed to be going the same way. They were roughly following the way the pipes were running in the ceiling. Sam and Everett didn’t seem to notice.
“There might be another way out,” said Sam. “Like a… maintenance entrance.”
“Yeah,” agreed Everett. “They can’t have people running in and out of here when the trains are coming, right?”
My stomach turned. The stress was getting to me. I wasn’t usually the quiet one of the group, but crawling around in the dark just weighed my entire mind down. It wasn’t supposed to be cold. It wasn’t supposed to be dark. We were supposed to be making hot dogs by the cabin.
There was a faint tapping sound. Something banging against the pipes, somewhere up ahead. Sam and Everett pushed forward.
And there it was. A maintenance door.
We all got excited. We ran up to it, and the moment Sam put his hands on the handle, I shouted at them to stop.
They just looked at me, barely illuminated by our combined electronics. I could see the parallel lines running in the snow leading into the maintenance door. I pointed it out to Sam and Everett, who didn’t pay it no mind. Sam thought it was water drops from condensation. Everett didn’t care.
It couldn’t be water drops. It was too cold, and too consistent. Something in me screamed at me to just… not go further. This was bad.
But the door flung open, and we stepped inside.
There was an awful smell in the air. Chemicals; mostly ammonia. It took some time getting used to, but we pushed on. There was a small corridor leading us further in, branching into maintenance tunnels that were so small that we had to move sideways to fit.
We explored, as a group. We couldn’t find an obvious way out, but we could make an educated guess. We just had to find a way that pointed us either straight forward, or straight back; following the curvature of the Rosewater tunnel.
At one point, we hit a dead end. As we turned back, I was suddenly first in line. Then we heard it again.
“You should… be helping me.”
This time it was just down the hall. It was so close it chilled me more than my freezing breath. And for a split second, I could swear I saw something move just at the edge of the light. Something that retreated into the dark with a rhythmic sound. And it was leaving behind those strange parallel lines in the frost-covered floor.
We got back to one of the maintenance hubs. The drainpipes coalesced, leading us further in. We stopped for a while, as Sam was out of batteries.
“They will come looking for us,” said Sam. “We should just go back and wait.”
“We’ll freeze,” I said. “It’s absurd, but we’ll freeze.”
“She’s right,” agreed Everett. “We… we gotta push.”
“Then I go second. I don’t have a light.”
We agreed.
And as we turned around, there was Josslyn.
We could barely make out her shape at first. She looked taller, and her hair clung to her face like she’d crawled out of a cold bath. She just stood there, barely keeping herself upright. Sam and I stood there in shock, but Everett burst into action. He sprinted forward towards her.
In a whiplash-like motion, Josslyn was pulled back into the dark. She didn’t make a sound.
I noticed two things.
One, that her legs didn’t move.
And two, that her feet barely touched the ground; leaving parallel lines in the frosted floor.
Everett rushed after her, screaming her name over and over like a desperate parrot. I was right behind him, and Sam was trying his best to keep up. We ran, seeing whiffs of her hair disappear further and further into the darkness. She was moving, fast, and we could barely keep up. Just seconds later, as we came to a four-way junction, she was gone.
Everett fell to his knees, panting. I stopped short of tripping over him.
“She… she’s here,” Everett panted. “S-something’s wrong.”
I spat and tried to stay in motion to keep my sweat from freezing. The salt stung my eyes.
“Why… why is she doing this?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“Wait,” I said.
I turned around.
“Where’s Sam?”
We backtracked. We tried to mentally map those labyrinthian halls, but we just came up with dead end after dead end. Sam was gone. Disappeared into the dark.
And somewhere, far ahead, we could hear something again.
“Yooooouu~ should be… helping me.”
But this time, in Sam’s voice.
Sam’s broken, drawling, drawn-out half-voice. It made the drainpipes reverberate, shaking with excitement.
This time, we turned the other way. We couldn’t keep getting pulled further and further in. We made a silent agreement that whatever was in there was something we didn’t want to see. We had to keep going, and once we got out, we could help.
“We… we have to follow the pipes,” said Everett. “They have to lead outside at some point!”
“Or they’ll just… just lead us further in!”
“We can’t keep running in circles! We pick a path, and we stick to it!”
He grabbed my shoulders. Even with barely functioning light, I could see the panicked size of his pupils. I nodded. Whatever it took for us to stick together.
We must’ve walked for hours. And finally, it opened up into another junction. This one with only two adjoining corridors. But by now, we’d moved around so much there was no way to tell what was north, south, or in-between. We could only guess.
“You pick,” said Everett.
And I did.
We followed one of the halls, and I could hear my footsteps growing louder. The echo was increasing. Moments later, the halls opened into a kind of hub area where all the drainpipes coalesced. It was much large than expected, with solid concrete walls and floors. Dozens of pipes lead us here.
Everett was about to rush forward when I put a hand on his shoulder. I looked around for a bit, but he brushed me off and kept going.
“Wait!” I called out, pointing.
There was something up ahead.
It was impossible not to recognize Sam. His body hanging limp, inches off the ground like a stringed-up puppet.
His skin white as snow, with icicles hanging from his beard and hair. He didn’t move.
“You shooooould… be helping me,” his body groaned, without ever moving his mouth.
The shadows behind him moved.
The very dark of the room; it moved.
And at that moment, I realized there was something oil-slick and dark slithering along the pipes; holding Sam up like a ventriloquist dummy.
“Sssssshould. Sssssshould be.”
I could see Josslyn’s bike, snapped in half and thrown into a corner. Strange flowers grew along the edge of the wall; like little sunflowers, frozen and blue.
I could see Josslyn’s backpack torn open and thrown across the floor. The hot dogs, trampled and abandoned. And there at the very edge of my light, I could see Josslyn’s frozen hair splayed across the concrete in a pool of frozen blood.
Unnatural hands crawled across the drainpipes, causing a rhythmic thumping. And just as the horror of this vision sunk into me, my mind exploded into panic. It was like watching through my eyes like a passenger, surrendering completely to whatever power would get me out of there. My mind lit up the world with fear, as a real and tangible threat started coming our way; and it was dragging Sam along.
I bolted back out the door. Something was right behind me, but I didn’t know if it was Everett or… that Sam-thing. I didn’t care. I didn’t care the slightest.
I turned a quick corner. Everett followed. The Sam-thing couldn’t keep up, and whatever held him just tossed him aside. I could hear his body shattering like a gypsum statue; his body frozen solid.
Another corner. A quick turn.
Too quick.
I tripped on my own feet. I fell, and Everett fell right after me. We ended up on our sides, lying face-to-face. Something in my elbow broke, and I couldn’t get up.
Then, Everett stopped. I did too. I held my breath, waiting for whatever pain there was to come. Everett looked at me, slack jawed.
His breathing stopped. A long mosquito-like appendage had extended down from the drainpipes, piercing the back of his skull, like popping a water balloon. It was sucking out his warmth, making his skin lose its color. Eyes sinking into his skull, freezing. Nails and tongue turning black. Skin cracking like porcelain. Membranes shriveling into nothing but dry meat.
“Yooooooou~ “ it started. “… yoooOoou… heEeeeeEelping me. Help. Helping meeeee.”
I couldn’t look away.
But as my light dwindled, all that was left was the cold of his touch, and his words; frozen in time.
“Shhhh… shhhhoooOo… should be. Be. Be.”
As my light went out, all that was left was one desperate plea. And for a moment, it sounded just like him.
“Helping me. Helping. Helping me. Helping… me.”
I must’ve stayed there for hours, growing colder by the minute. I just lay there, listening to him slowly learning how to talk with Everett’s body. My tears had frozen my eyelids shut, and my shivers had subsided to a deep throbbing pain.
At some point, Everett was lifted off the floor. And as a cold spike poked against my skin, I realized I could barely feel it. I was too cold.
The creature must’ve thought the same thing, as it left me there. I had no warmth left for it to feast on.
I was no longer interesting prey. I’d accidentally strained my elbow as I fell, and I could barely feel my legs. Further and further away, I could hear the rhythmic thumping as the creature moved along the drainpipes. The pleas of what remained of Everett grew more confident, and distant.
At some point, it wasn’t interested anymore. I fumbled down corridor after corridor, trying to keep my eyes open.
And out of nowhere, the tunnels just seemed to... open up.
On the other side of the Rosewater Tunnel, the light blinded me.
The sun of late June promised me that I was finally safe.
Now, this was all about… five years ago. Law enforcement insist that we were “urban explorers” who messed up. There had been reports of rockslides near the Rosewater Tunnels, and they figured that Sam, Everett and Josslyn got caught in it somewhere deep in the abandoned side tunnels. They didn’t take any other report or indication of wrongdoing seriously. That I had frost burns in late June didn’t seem to bother them.
I’ve been holding off on writing this story as it was technically open for investigation until last September. They finally closed it, officially classifying it as a kind of spelunking expedition gone wrong. They swear they’ve investigated the tunnel, but I have yet to see a single squad car anywhere near it.
I don’t think this is over.
I’ve since left it all behind. The town, the people, the past.
And whatever future I have left, I will cherish.
submitted by Saturdead to nosleep [link] [comments]
That summer was the first summer we went to Everett’s cabin. We biked up there with his dad and spent three days hiking, fishing, telling stories, building a treehouse, and chowing down on hot dogs. It was amazing, and probably the first time in my life where I truly felt like part of a group.
For the next few years, we went back up there every summer. Sometimes we’d get another member, sometimes we’d lose one. People came and went, but we biked up there every summer nonetheless.
They became my best friends. I was one of the “original members” alongside Everett and Sam, but one year we had Lewis, another year there was Owen, and so on. But me, Everett, and Sam? We were always there. The originals.
By the time we all turned 14, there was another girl joining the group; Sam’s girlfriend Josslyn. I’d had some trouble getting along with other girls, so I was a bit hesitant about having Josslyn come along. But I was hilariously wrong. Within a couple of weeks, Josslyn became my best friend. She was like the sister I never had.
The year we turned 16 was the last time we would go there as a group. By then, everyone was growing up. Some were going to college; others were getting a job. Hell, Sam and Josslyn had just broken up and could barely be in the same room. Spending the summer in Everett’s cabin became one of those things that you just stop doing. We promised we’d go back there someday and celebrate summer the right way, knowing full well that would probably never happen.
And then, nothing. And as with all names and faces, they started growing distant. We kept in touch every now and then, but Sam, Everett and Josslyn all went on with their lives. I did too.
That was until a few years ago, when we all turned 30.
By then, Sam was about to move out of state. His startup company had gained some traction, and they were moving their main office. He was hitting the big leagues.
Josslyn was planning a move to Scotland. She’d met this guy at the university that she fell head over heels in love with, and the two of them’d had a long-distance relationship for close to a decade.
Everett, well, he’d tried to play the family man. He had a four-year old son and a two-year old girl with a woman who was divorcing him. Oof.
And me? Well, I wasn’t dealing with my aging very well. I’ve had anxiety all my life and haven’t celebrated a birthday since I was 14. I can barely look myself in the mirror, horrified of the possibility of seeing a grey hair. I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, truth be told, and I imagine feeling all kinds of cramps and pains because of my age. And yes, I know 30 isn’t that old. Doesn’t matter.
But that summer, Everett sent us a message out of nowhere. His family was selling the cabin, and he figured one more trip down memory lane would do us all some good. The whole area was being sold off to a logging company at the end of summer. Personally, I just think the divorce was getting to him.
At first, I wasn’t going to accept. But after seeing both Sam and Josslyn agreeing to come, I couldn’t say no. Maybe it would distract me from turning 30.
So one sunny day in late June I drove down from Morgantown back home to Juniper (WV), not knowing what to expect. I figured I might get a nice weekend out of it.
And as I met up with Sam and Everett, it was as if nothing had changed. They hugged me. We laughed, we joked around, and we laughed some more. Everett had rented us mountain bikes. I got the blue one.
Sure, they looked a bit different. Sam had put on a few pounds and had a thick pair of glasses. He was already sweating. Everett, who used to have dreadlocks, had this short and neat office-type haircut, and his eyes looked darker. But that was all just appearance; they were the same guys. Same humor, same smiles, same favorite superheroes. Wonderful.
We stopped at the supermarket. I was comparing beef jerky prices when Sam walked up to me.
“Josslyn went on ahead,” he explained. “The roads are all dug up, so we’re taking the tunnel.”
“The Rosewater tunnel? By the railroad?” I asked.
“Yeah,” nodded Sam. “Shouldn’t take long. Josslyn is already up there.”
Made sense to me. Josslyn was the outdoorsy type. She was probably up there making a fire by rubbing sticks together or something. But just in case, I bought myself a Firestarter. You never know.
And then we were off. Riding bikes with the same people, down the same roads. Sure, it all looked different, but it really wasn’t. After all these years, I was still just me and the guys. For a moment, I felt this surge of optimism; like everything, somehow, might turn out all right.
Everett took point. We followed a trail deep into the pine forest, sweating under the summer sun. The canopy was a blessing, hiding us from the afternoon heat. It took us a bit over an hour to find the railroad tracks. We followed them north. Sam was sweating like he’d never even seen a bike before.
Then we got to the tunnel. The old Rosewater tunnel wasn’t long, but it was old. Everyone knew about it, but it was the kind of place that parents refused to let their kids go near. The place was probably covered in mold. Still, biking through it wouldn’t be a problem. You could feel the draft coming through.
The tunnel had a slight curve to it, so we couldn’t see the other side. Still, Everett took point and howled with joy as he entered. The echo bounced off the walls, reaching into the mountain. Sam followed suit, shrieking just as loud. We dove deep into the dark with the rhythmic thumping of the railroad tracks beneath us.
Our bike lights shone as bright as they could, but the tunnel swallowed them. It was getting colder and colder, almost to the point of my breath showing. Little dust particles danced in the weak light. The sound of spinning bike chains and thumping wheels echoed, and the air tasted like old moisture.
Suddenly, Everett stopped. Then Sam. And soon, I could see why.
We were in the middle of the tunnel, and there was something covering the ground.
Snow.
We were all standing there dumbfounded. Snow? In late June? That didn’t make a lick of sense.
“That’s just weird,” said Sam. “Let’s keep going.”
“Wait,” said Everett.
He stepped off his bike and walked around for a bit. I leaned against my handlebar, feeling the weight of my backpack. I hadn’t even noticed how out of breath I was. Everett leaned down, looking at the snow.
“What’s up?” Sam asked. “We going?”
“Yeah, yeah,” nodded Everett. “It’s just… I dunno.”
“Dunno what?”
“Like… where’re the tracks?”
“You’re sitting on ‘em” I added. “What’s the deal?”
“No, Josslyn’s tracks.”
Now I could definitely see my own breath. And Everett was right, the snow was undisturbed. Josslyn couldn’t have come through there, unless the snow had recently settled. But what, an inch and a half of powder snow in late June, in less than a day? Nah.
Everett got back on his bike.
“Let’s just keep going.”
We biked through the snow. About ten minutes later, we got to the edge of the tunnel.
It’d collapsed in on itself.
The ceiling had caved in and filled the entire tunnel with a steep slant of solid rock chunks. It didn’t look recent either.
We just turned around. There was no reason for us to keep pushing forward, so we decided to just go back out and follow the (if somewhat broken) main road instead. We had bikes, we could go pretty much anywhere. Still, I couldn’t help but notice how Everett seemed a bit distraught. We all were.
On our way back through the snow, I got the sense that something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. But right then and there, I was just happy we were leaving.
Except we didn’t get far.
The path we came in through had also collapsed.
“Did we make a… a wrong turn?” Sam asked. “I thought this… this was just a straight line.”
“It is,” said Everett. “This, uh… this doesn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” I gasped. “I didn’t hear a goddamn thing.”
“This is old. There’s dust. It didn’t just collapse, this is… ,” insisted Everett.
“So we must’ve gotten turned around somewhere,” smiled Sam. “So we backtrack.”
It took us about 45 minutes to move from one end of the tunnel to the other; but both ends were definitely collapsed. How we entered in the first place was mind boggling. It didn’t make sense.
At some point, we just stopped. We stepped off our bikes and sat down. Sam used his phone as a flashlight, illuminating the dancing dust particles. The air tasted stale.
“No bars,” Sam said. “Tunnels suck.”
“It doesn’t make sense!” groaned Everett. “We got in, we can get out!”
“How?!” I asked, throwing my arms out. “I’m not seeing any exits! It… it fell!”
“That’s impossible!” spat Everett. “There would be a… a goddamn ear-bursting pressure! There’d be so much dust we… we wouldn’t be able to breathe! And there wouldn’t be goddamn snow all over the ground!”
We tried to get our phones to work. We tried moving the rocks, but the thick moisture in the air had frozen; making them all stick together like bricks and mortar. There was no way.
We wasted hours, and the temperature just kept dropping. I’d started shivering, and Sam’s breath had frozen into little icicles in his beard. Everett paced back and forth, trying to come up with a plan.
The snow was either expanding, or we kept coming back to it. Either way, it was everywhere. And the temperature kept dropping; fast.
At one point, that strange feeling in my stomach came back to me. I removed my bike light and used it as a torch. I noticed something in the snow.
I could see our tracks. Both from our bikes, and our shoes. But there was something else; a slight impression. Two thin parallel lines, running next to the wall. They twisted and turned at times, but I couldn’t make out what it was supposed to be. I called Sam and Everett over to help me, but we suddenly got distracted.
Somewhere deep in the tunnel, I heard something.
A voice.
“You should be helping me.”
It came from further in. Without a doubt in my mind, and after all these years, I could still recognize Josslyn’s voice. We tried to pinpoint where it came from, but the tunnel made it impossible.
“Joss?” Sam called out. “Joss, you there?”
Nothing. We looked at one another. It took Everett a few moments to even attempt to accept this.
“Joss!” Everett finally called out “Josslyn!”
Still, nothing.
We looked for her. I could feel myself growing more desperate as the air got colder. My teeth had started to chatter, and no amount of rubbing my arms changed a thing. My hairs were standing at attention, as if listening for warmth.
Sam and Everett kept calling out to her, but we got no response. And all over the snow I kept seeing these two parallel lines, just barely scraping the top of the snow. Either they’d been there for a while, or whatever was making them were something extraordinarily light. But there was no way of telling where it came from.
I have no idea how many hours we spent walking up and down that freezing tunnel. At some point, we all gathered in a circle and wrapped ourselves in sleeping bags. I tried to use my Firestarter, but we didn’t have much to burn. We piled up some of our extra clothes and spent the better part of an hour setting it on fire. It burned for less than ten minutes.
At some point, we just stopped trying. Our hands were raw, and I started having cold sweats. We’d turned off the lights to save on battery, but my restless eyes kept moving. I could feel myself going cross-eyed, my mind confused by the pressing dark.
There was too much ground to cover. There might be some side tunnel that we might’ve missed, but we were losing hope. I didn’t know what to make of it. Sam and Everett had gone through several cycles of arguing, making a desperate effort, being anxiously hopeful, and then back to arguing. Now they were just quiet.
I would’ve preferred an argument.
“You… should be helping me.”
We all looked up. It was distant, but not as distant as last time. I could hear Sam shuffling as he got up. He called out to Josslyn again and again, but there was no response. Sam was growing more and more desperate, and his screams got louder. At some point, he stopped calling out to her; he just screamed.
The arguing started again as Everett tried to shut him up. But I heard something. I looked up, concentrating on the sound. There was a slight reverb, like the sound bouncing off something metallic.
I put my bike light back on and looked up, letting the bright cone answer my question.
There were drainpipes running along the ceiling of the tunnel.
“Some… some kind of drainage, or a run-off,” said Sam, looking up. “That’s gotta… wait. This wasn’t at the entrance.”
“So it started further in,” I said. “Maybe there’s a maintenance area.”
At that, Everett got up.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah, that makes, uh… that makes sense.”
We followed the pipes, and I couldn’t help but notice that the parallel lines in the snow that seemed to be going the same way. They were roughly following the way the pipes were running in the ceiling. Sam and Everett didn’t seem to notice.
“There might be another way out,” said Sam. “Like a… maintenance entrance.”
“Yeah,” agreed Everett. “They can’t have people running in and out of here when the trains are coming, right?”
My stomach turned. The stress was getting to me. I wasn’t usually the quiet one of the group, but crawling around in the dark just weighed my entire mind down. It wasn’t supposed to be cold. It wasn’t supposed to be dark. We were supposed to be making hot dogs by the cabin.
There was a faint tapping sound. Something banging against the pipes, somewhere up ahead. Sam and Everett pushed forward.
And there it was. A maintenance door.
We all got excited. We ran up to it, and the moment Sam put his hands on the handle, I shouted at them to stop.
They just looked at me, barely illuminated by our combined electronics. I could see the parallel lines running in the snow leading into the maintenance door. I pointed it out to Sam and Everett, who didn’t pay it no mind. Sam thought it was water drops from condensation. Everett didn’t care.
It couldn’t be water drops. It was too cold, and too consistent. Something in me screamed at me to just… not go further. This was bad.
But the door flung open, and we stepped inside.
There was an awful smell in the air. Chemicals; mostly ammonia. It took some time getting used to, but we pushed on. There was a small corridor leading us further in, branching into maintenance tunnels that were so small that we had to move sideways to fit.
We explored, as a group. We couldn’t find an obvious way out, but we could make an educated guess. We just had to find a way that pointed us either straight forward, or straight back; following the curvature of the Rosewater tunnel.
At one point, we hit a dead end. As we turned back, I was suddenly first in line. Then we heard it again.
“You should… be helping me.”
This time it was just down the hall. It was so close it chilled me more than my freezing breath. And for a split second, I could swear I saw something move just at the edge of the light. Something that retreated into the dark with a rhythmic sound. And it was leaving behind those strange parallel lines in the frost-covered floor.
We got back to one of the maintenance hubs. The drainpipes coalesced, leading us further in. We stopped for a while, as Sam was out of batteries.
“They will come looking for us,” said Sam. “We should just go back and wait.”
“We’ll freeze,” I said. “It’s absurd, but we’ll freeze.”
“She’s right,” agreed Everett. “We… we gotta push.”
“Then I go second. I don’t have a light.”
We agreed.
And as we turned around, there was Josslyn.
We could barely make out her shape at first. She looked taller, and her hair clung to her face like she’d crawled out of a cold bath. She just stood there, barely keeping herself upright. Sam and I stood there in shock, but Everett burst into action. He sprinted forward towards her.
In a whiplash-like motion, Josslyn was pulled back into the dark. She didn’t make a sound.
I noticed two things.
One, that her legs didn’t move.
And two, that her feet barely touched the ground; leaving parallel lines in the frosted floor.
Everett rushed after her, screaming her name over and over like a desperate parrot. I was right behind him, and Sam was trying his best to keep up. We ran, seeing whiffs of her hair disappear further and further into the darkness. She was moving, fast, and we could barely keep up. Just seconds later, as we came to a four-way junction, she was gone.
Everett fell to his knees, panting. I stopped short of tripping over him.
“She… she’s here,” Everett panted. “S-something’s wrong.”
I spat and tried to stay in motion to keep my sweat from freezing. The salt stung my eyes.
“Why… why is she doing this?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“Wait,” I said.
I turned around.
“Where’s Sam?”
We backtracked. We tried to mentally map those labyrinthian halls, but we just came up with dead end after dead end. Sam was gone. Disappeared into the dark.
And somewhere, far ahead, we could hear something again.
“Yooooouu~ should be… helping me.”
But this time, in Sam’s voice.
Sam’s broken, drawling, drawn-out half-voice. It made the drainpipes reverberate, shaking with excitement.
This time, we turned the other way. We couldn’t keep getting pulled further and further in. We made a silent agreement that whatever was in there was something we didn’t want to see. We had to keep going, and once we got out, we could help.
“We… we have to follow the pipes,” said Everett. “They have to lead outside at some point!”
“Or they’ll just… just lead us further in!”
“We can’t keep running in circles! We pick a path, and we stick to it!”
He grabbed my shoulders. Even with barely functioning light, I could see the panicked size of his pupils. I nodded. Whatever it took for us to stick together.
We must’ve walked for hours. And finally, it opened up into another junction. This one with only two adjoining corridors. But by now, we’d moved around so much there was no way to tell what was north, south, or in-between. We could only guess.
“You pick,” said Everett.
And I did.
We followed one of the halls, and I could hear my footsteps growing louder. The echo was increasing. Moments later, the halls opened into a kind of hub area where all the drainpipes coalesced. It was much large than expected, with solid concrete walls and floors. Dozens of pipes lead us here.
Everett was about to rush forward when I put a hand on his shoulder. I looked around for a bit, but he brushed me off and kept going.
“Wait!” I called out, pointing.
There was something up ahead.
It was impossible not to recognize Sam. His body hanging limp, inches off the ground like a stringed-up puppet.
His skin white as snow, with icicles hanging from his beard and hair. He didn’t move.
“You shooooould… be helping me,” his body groaned, without ever moving his mouth.
The shadows behind him moved.
The very dark of the room; it moved.
And at that moment, I realized there was something oil-slick and dark slithering along the pipes; holding Sam up like a ventriloquist dummy.
“Sssssshould. Sssssshould be.”
I could see Josslyn’s bike, snapped in half and thrown into a corner. Strange flowers grew along the edge of the wall; like little sunflowers, frozen and blue.
I could see Josslyn’s backpack torn open and thrown across the floor. The hot dogs, trampled and abandoned. And there at the very edge of my light, I could see Josslyn’s frozen hair splayed across the concrete in a pool of frozen blood.
Unnatural hands crawled across the drainpipes, causing a rhythmic thumping. And just as the horror of this vision sunk into me, my mind exploded into panic. It was like watching through my eyes like a passenger, surrendering completely to whatever power would get me out of there. My mind lit up the world with fear, as a real and tangible threat started coming our way; and it was dragging Sam along.
I bolted back out the door. Something was right behind me, but I didn’t know if it was Everett or… that Sam-thing. I didn’t care. I didn’t care the slightest.
I turned a quick corner. Everett followed. The Sam-thing couldn’t keep up, and whatever held him just tossed him aside. I could hear his body shattering like a gypsum statue; his body frozen solid.
Another corner. A quick turn.
Too quick.
I tripped on my own feet. I fell, and Everett fell right after me. We ended up on our sides, lying face-to-face. Something in my elbow broke, and I couldn’t get up.
Then, Everett stopped. I did too. I held my breath, waiting for whatever pain there was to come. Everett looked at me, slack jawed.
His breathing stopped. A long mosquito-like appendage had extended down from the drainpipes, piercing the back of his skull, like popping a water balloon. It was sucking out his warmth, making his skin lose its color. Eyes sinking into his skull, freezing. Nails and tongue turning black. Skin cracking like porcelain. Membranes shriveling into nothing but dry meat.
“Yooooooou~ “ it started. “… yoooOoou… heEeeeeEelping me. Help. Helping meeeee.”
I couldn’t look away.
But as my light dwindled, all that was left was the cold of his touch, and his words; frozen in time.
“Shhhh… shhhhoooOo… should be. Be. Be.”
As my light went out, all that was left was one desperate plea. And for a moment, it sounded just like him.
“Helping me. Helping. Helping me. Helping… me.”
I must’ve stayed there for hours, growing colder by the minute. I just lay there, listening to him slowly learning how to talk with Everett’s body. My tears had frozen my eyelids shut, and my shivers had subsided to a deep throbbing pain.
At some point, Everett was lifted off the floor. And as a cold spike poked against my skin, I realized I could barely feel it. I was too cold.
The creature must’ve thought the same thing, as it left me there. I had no warmth left for it to feast on.
I was no longer interesting prey. I’d accidentally strained my elbow as I fell, and I could barely feel my legs. Further and further away, I could hear the rhythmic thumping as the creature moved along the drainpipes. The pleas of what remained of Everett grew more confident, and distant.
At some point, it wasn’t interested anymore. I fumbled down corridor after corridor, trying to keep my eyes open.
And out of nowhere, the tunnels just seemed to... open up.
On the other side of the Rosewater Tunnel, the light blinded me.
The sun of late June promised me that I was finally safe.
Now, this was all about… five years ago. Law enforcement insist that we were “urban explorers” who messed up. There had been reports of rockslides near the Rosewater Tunnels, and they figured that Sam, Everett and Josslyn got caught in it somewhere deep in the abandoned side tunnels. They didn’t take any other report or indication of wrongdoing seriously. That I had frost burns in late June didn’t seem to bother them.
I’ve been holding off on writing this story as it was technically open for investigation until last September. They finally closed it, officially classifying it as a kind of spelunking expedition gone wrong. They swear they’ve investigated the tunnel, but I have yet to see a single squad car anywhere near it.
I don’t think this is over.
I’ve since left it all behind. The town, the people, the past.
And whatever future I have left, I will cherish.
2023.03.25 01:54 mixdnutz Fizzy Fridays
 | Hey soda lovers. submitted by mixdnutz to Soda [link] [comments] I wanted to share my Fizzy Friday Tradition. Every Friday (well mostly) for the past 12 or so years I get a soda. Now sometimes this is common in my area soda (Mexican Coke/Sprite/Pepsi, Africola,Reeds, Fentimans ,Dry, Dr.Browns, AJ Stephans, Sprecher,Jones, Fanta, San Pelligrino, Virgils, Jarritos, Blue Sky, Hansen, Maine Root, Fever Tree, Bionade, Lorrina, Taylor's Tonic, Thomas Kemper, Bruce Cost, Q, Ollipop, Izze, Kimino, Langers, and a few more) or a bit less common (usually imports from UK,Europe, Asia,South America) and if I don't have a good source or am too tired to find something cool, everyday things (regular North American brands:A&W,Coke,Pepsi, Canada Dry, Schwepps, Crush, Dr. Pepper) . I never do novelty sodas like Corn, Bacon, Pickle etc and generally avoid common flavors with generic labels that seem like the same exact soda just labeled with different company names. I used to keep a book but stopped. Anyhow my drink last Friday was a Limca. This Friday is was Kimino Ringo. Anyone else do this? Not actual image, purchased from Indian grocery store direct import with a sticker and everything Not actual image, purchased from a local wine and beer store |
2023.03.25 01:10 cfalnevermore My Daughter and I might not be Human: I think I blew up the Neighbor’s Dog
I’m nothing special. I’m lazy, and damn it, I’m happy being lazy. I feel bad about it a lot, but not quite bad enough to actually change. It’s kind of a problem. My spouse has me going to therapy and everything.
I thought I had big dreams. I talked big in high school. I’d get into filmmaking, and use my art to change the world. I was an ass about it too. Scoffing at anyone who didn’t have big ambitions. But then I got to college (on my parents dime) and… something just broke. More likely, it had always been broken, and now that I was out on my own it just finally came to the surface. I don’t know. I didn’t last two years in film school.
One of my classmates writes for tv and has her own IMDB page now. That’s what I was up against. And Christ… I didn’t have the energy, creativity, or passion that those people had. I don't want to have no steady structure to my life. Film sets operate at all hours, anywhere in the world. It’s insanely competitive, and who the fuck has the energy to deal with that shit?
I spiraled into depression. Arguably I found my way out again, but a lot of the world tells me otherwise. I work a dead end job at a movie theater chain, mostly as a cleaner. I’ve worked there for five years now. If I wanted, I could theoretically learn all I could, and break into management, or learn to be a projectionist, so I could make more money and possibly advance. But I don’t have the focus, or the drive. I left myself a reminder on my phone to look into job advancement two years ago. It still pops up every Friday.
That’s how it’s been for most of my adult life. There are ways I could improve. Things I could do. I could be more wealthy. Not by much, mind you. But still. I just don’t care enough. I can barely bring myself to care about the simple job I have now.
Honestly, it’s a miracle that someone fell in love with me, let alone someone as amazing as my spouse. They do have ambition. It’s not self-centered capitalist passion either, like getting famous, or making lots of money. They want to help people. They’re a social worker. They get paid pennies to deal with people at their absolute worst. Some of the people they serve wouldn’t even be there if the courts hadn’t ordered it for their criminal behavior. In just five years, I’ve watched their passion drain, as that selfless job kicked the ever loving shit out of them. And here’s me. Too fucking lazy to pick up the slack so that maybe they can take a shorter shift or a smaller client base.
I plan to. I always plan to. But then we got stuck. Something crazy happened. They got pregnant. Suddenly we couldn’t afford for me to leave my shit job to find another, because we needed healthcare coverage. Our daughter was born two months ago now. That shit does weird things to you. I may be a lazy pos, but I am going to care for this baby as best I can. I don’t even know why. Sure she’s cute, but she screams a lot, she's always hungry, she poops, pees, and vomits on me, and she’s completely upended my life. These things are typically traits that would make me despise other human beings. But with baby Lina? I’m all “daaawww look at you.” Then I start crying and yelling about how much I love this baby. I swear, babies are pure evil, with their insidious cuteness and ability to fill us with “parent” hormones.
But why am I mentioning all this? Why should any of you people care about a boring, lazy pos like me? You shouldn’t really. I just wanted to illustrate to all of you that I’m utterly inconsequential. Useless. There’s nothing special about me, and I’m fucking fine with that. I will find the most amount of money, for the least amount of effort, that will give me enough time to blow on reading, movies, and video games. That’s all I aspire to really. That only changed slightly to accommodate my daughter. So now you have an idea. I'm nothing. One of those beings whose only a step above a societal parasite (except being a parasite makes you a billionaire these days).
And yet? I set the neighbor's dog on fire.
I didn’t do it on purpose. Not really anyway. I think I did it with my freaking mind. It seemed to come out of my fingers. I don’t know. I made fire, and it reduced this big angry mastiff to nothing but ash in a few short seconds. Bones, claws, fur, all of it just disintegrated, then the wind blew the ash away.
I sat there, one hand on Lina’s stroller, the other raised towards where the charging dog had been, my eyes wide with shock and my jaw at my feet. I blinked a few times. Trying to make sense of things.
I tried running through how the hell I reached this point. I was taking Lina for a walk in her stroller, I saw that big jackass dog (I think it’s name was Roofus) who had somehow escaped his yard (for the umpteenth time), and he had come bounding at my daughter and I as fast as his fat doggy legs could carry him. My brain had only just processed that the big, aggressive dog was out again, when it finally clicked that it was bounding towards me and my baby girl. That thing had nipped me in the past, but I never pressed charges. Why should I bother? But now I wish I had. Now it could hurt my baby. Shit. Why didn’t I confront our neighbor? I have to stop it! I thought.
I got between the approaching dog and Lina’s stroller. I raised my hand to do… something. I think I was hoping the dog would slow down. It didn’t. And then… there was a flash of weird yellow light. The dog didn’t have time to make a sound of pain or surprise. It just dissolved in a superheated ball of flames.
I lowered my hand, trying to make sense of it as the ash blew into the wind. I glanced down at Lina. She smiled up at me, and she even laughed. That was the first time I’d ever seen her laugh. I just kind of blinked.
“Ron! Hey Ron!” Someone was running towards me. I kept staring at Lina for a second before it registered. It was Harold. The white trashy dude who owned Roofus and refused to tie him up (while also refusing to either fix his fence or keep a closer eye on his big aggressive dog). You see that flash, man?” It wasn't even noon, and I could already smell the alcohol (despite the stench of burnt fur).
“Uh… yeah.”
“You know what the fuck that was?”
“Uh… no.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Shit. You seen my ‘dawg?’ Roofus done broke the fence again.”
“… no.” That absolutely was a lie.
“Damn, man. What’s that smell?”
“I… smells like a burning animal.” That one wasn’t a lie either.
“Sheeet. Look at the grass here!” He pointed at the spot where his big angry dog had vanished. There was a circle of scorched black grass.
Oh shit. I fucked up miss Peasley’s lawn went my idiot brain. “Huh,” my mouth said.
“Prolly a squirrel blew up on the power line. Ha! That bitch Peasley is gonna be pissed.”
Ugh. You’re such a douche, Harold. Holy crap I blew up your dog. Or did I? Maybe he’s right and it was an electrical line?
“Lemme know if you see Roofus!” Harold went on his way, leaving me utterly bewildered. What could I do? After standing there, terrified, for another minute, I took Lina home and ended up spending the rest of the morning desperately trying to coax her to eat while she screamed at me.
So yeah. I can apparently blow up dogs with my hands. No fucking clue how I did it. That happened a week ago. Miss Peasley got the HOA to contact electricians to check the power lines. They didn’t find any damage, but nobody else could figure out what had scorched Peasley’s lawn. The prevailing theory is Harold’s. An animal got scorched by the power lines and fell on her lawn. So they replaced those lines.
Apparently I’m the only one who knows that Harold’s dog blew up. Nobody else saw a thing. I would feel worse, but Harold managed to be a misogynistic prick even while he was sadly putting up ‘missing dog’ posters (dude was muttering about some teenage girl's shorts, like it was any of his business). And Roofus wasn’t a friendly dog. There were lots of stories about him terrorizing the neighborhood. Harold had even been charged over it.
All the same… I think I fucking blew up a dog and I keep having nightmares about it. I love dogs. I can’t afford to care for one, but Christ, I don’t want to blow one up! How the fuck did I even do that?
I’ve spent the week repeating over and over that it didn’t happen. Even if it did, it couldn’t have been me. Something else blew up the dog. Maybe Peasley secretly planted a land mine? She’s an eighty year old lady, so it’s unlikely… but it has to be more likely than me throwing fire at a dog that disintegrated it, right?
I was almost convinced, then I blew something else up. A little vase. It had housed an orchid at one time, but we’d both failed to keep the poor thing alive. We had yet to throw it away. I had set Lina in her bassinet, and dragged it into the kitchen where I could watch it while I tried to do a few chores. My cat, Sabrina, decided to get the zoomies and started bolting through the house. Eventually, she found herself leaping on top of the kitchen counters while I yelled at her to stop. I startled her, mid run. She lurched. She hit that vase with the dead plant in it.
I panicked. I was utterly convinced that the vase was about to fly straight into the bassinet and give my baby a concussion or worse. Despite the fact that I was nowhere near it, I thought to myself ‘I have to stop it!’ And when I thought that? The fire came back, scorched the little pot, and shattered it into a billion little pieces which clattered to the floor. Only then did it occur to me that Lina’s bassinet was nowhere near any of the counters, much less right next to the falling vase. I tried telling myself that the cat just knocked the vase down. But I fucking saw it happen. I saw the fireball shatter the vase long before it hit the floor. Honestly, I should be glad I didn’t blow up the cat.
Something really fucking weird is going on. I tried setting other things on fire. Nothing works. No matter how hard I “focus” or “concentrate.”
It only seems to happen when I think Lina is in danger. Do parents get superpowers I don’t know about? Is Lina doing this? She’s been weirdly chipper every time it happens. Furthermore, I keep noticing weird shit about her. I swear her eyes changed color. And not just in that ‘newborn baby growing up’ kind of way. It was like a flash of yellow that happened while I was trying to play peekaboo. She hadn’t really reacted to the game, so I figured she wasn’t old enough to register. But I tried one more time, and when I moved my hands, for a second? She had freaking yellow lizard eyes. But the moment passed and they were back to that baby blue. She just giggled up at me, cute as a button. Then she spit up a third of the formula I spent the last hour feeding her. Stuff smelled like pure gasoline.
Somehow? I was still trying to tell myself it was all in my head. The fires were some weird coincidence. Lina had a tummy ache or something that made her spit-up smell weird, and everything else was just in my imagination. I definitely didn’t see Lina floating an inch or so above her sleeping pad. My spouse, Chris, definitely didn’t hear me growling like a monster in my sleep. I definitely didn’t accidentally set fire to the diaper pail. And of course, the disappearance of Roofus, had nothing to do with me.
But then Chris dropped a bomb on me. I was once again struggling to feed our daughter one evening. She just wanted nothing to do with the bottle. Chris never seems to have trouble feeding her, with a bottle or nursing. For some reason? Lina just didn’t want to accept a bottle from me. I was frustrated. Chris saw it on my face.
“Hold on, Ron. There’s… there’s a weird trick I’ve been using. It started by accident. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you because… well… It's insane. And gross. But… It works. I use it in bottles and with nursing. And I never got to add it to the formula pitcher you're using. So you may as well know…” they looked very conflicted. Scared even.
“Chris. What do you mean? Is everything okay?” Chris swallowed nervously, then gathered their courage.
“Here. Let me see her bottle.” Confused, and weirdly intrigued, I handed it over, trying to ignore Lina’s angry wailing. Chris took it and turned around, hiding whatever they were doing. I heard them unscrew the bottle, then briefly hiss in pain, and a few seconds later, they screwed the lid back on, turned around, and handed it back. “Okay. Try feeding her now.”
I cocked an eyebrow, and glanced down at my daughter, who glared up at me (adorably). Cautiously, I offered her the nipple of the bottle. She fussed a bit at first, but then she tasted the liquid. She latched right on and happily began chugging away. I’ve never had her feed so easily with me. “Okay. What the heck did you do? She hardly ever eats this well for me.”
I glanced at Chris. They looked conflicted, and a little pale. They didn’t say a word. They just held up their left hand, and showed me a bleeding cut they had on their palm.
“I… you cut yourself?” I had no idea what they were implying.
“Blood, Ron. I added my blood.”
“You…” it took me a second. Finally my brain caught up. “You’ve been feeding her your blood?” I felt my mouth go dry and my face go pale. I struggled just to ask the question.
“Just adding a bit to the pitcher is usually enough.”
“I… what about nursing?”
They raised an eyebrow at me. “Have you seen my nipples lately?”
Suddenly the empty cases of nip guards and nipple cream made a lot more sense to me.
“How… did you figure it out?” I wondered.
“By mistake. It was when you went to get us food. I was having trouble getting her to latch at first, remember? But then, she started sucking on my finger. Cried when I pulled away. When she stopped I saw I had a cut. She was sucking on my cut.”
“Oh my god,” I said, as I combined my experiences with Chris’s in my head.
I think my spouse misinterpreted my reaction. They seemed to break down in tears, begging me for forgiveness.
“I know it’s fucked up! I didn’t know what to do! She wouldn’t eat unless I added a bit of blood! Please tell me you understand!”
I looked into their pretty blue eyes. The ones I felt so lucky to have fallen for. I was inwardly freaking out myself. All I managed to sputter out was “I think I blew up the neighbor’s dog.” We had a looong conversation after that.
So Chris and I are all caught up with each other. We’re on the same page. There’s definitely some really weird shit going on in our house, but fucked if we know what any of it is. I decided to see if anyone here had some ideas. Neither of us really want to contact the church. But hell. We’re getting desperate. Lina just keeps growing. What will she want when she starts eating solids?
submitted by cfalnevermore to nosleep [link] [comments]
I thought I had big dreams. I talked big in high school. I’d get into filmmaking, and use my art to change the world. I was an ass about it too. Scoffing at anyone who didn’t have big ambitions. But then I got to college (on my parents dime) and… something just broke. More likely, it had always been broken, and now that I was out on my own it just finally came to the surface. I don’t know. I didn’t last two years in film school.
One of my classmates writes for tv and has her own IMDB page now. That’s what I was up against. And Christ… I didn’t have the energy, creativity, or passion that those people had. I don't want to have no steady structure to my life. Film sets operate at all hours, anywhere in the world. It’s insanely competitive, and who the fuck has the energy to deal with that shit?
I spiraled into depression. Arguably I found my way out again, but a lot of the world tells me otherwise. I work a dead end job at a movie theater chain, mostly as a cleaner. I’ve worked there for five years now. If I wanted, I could theoretically learn all I could, and break into management, or learn to be a projectionist, so I could make more money and possibly advance. But I don’t have the focus, or the drive. I left myself a reminder on my phone to look into job advancement two years ago. It still pops up every Friday.
That’s how it’s been for most of my adult life. There are ways I could improve. Things I could do. I could be more wealthy. Not by much, mind you. But still. I just don’t care enough. I can barely bring myself to care about the simple job I have now.
Honestly, it’s a miracle that someone fell in love with me, let alone someone as amazing as my spouse. They do have ambition. It’s not self-centered capitalist passion either, like getting famous, or making lots of money. They want to help people. They’re a social worker. They get paid pennies to deal with people at their absolute worst. Some of the people they serve wouldn’t even be there if the courts hadn’t ordered it for their criminal behavior. In just five years, I’ve watched their passion drain, as that selfless job kicked the ever loving shit out of them. And here’s me. Too fucking lazy to pick up the slack so that maybe they can take a shorter shift or a smaller client base.
I plan to. I always plan to. But then we got stuck. Something crazy happened. They got pregnant. Suddenly we couldn’t afford for me to leave my shit job to find another, because we needed healthcare coverage. Our daughter was born two months ago now. That shit does weird things to you. I may be a lazy pos, but I am going to care for this baby as best I can. I don’t even know why. Sure she’s cute, but she screams a lot, she's always hungry, she poops, pees, and vomits on me, and she’s completely upended my life. These things are typically traits that would make me despise other human beings. But with baby Lina? I’m all “daaawww look at you.” Then I start crying and yelling about how much I love this baby. I swear, babies are pure evil, with their insidious cuteness and ability to fill us with “parent” hormones.
But why am I mentioning all this? Why should any of you people care about a boring, lazy pos like me? You shouldn’t really. I just wanted to illustrate to all of you that I’m utterly inconsequential. Useless. There’s nothing special about me, and I’m fucking fine with that. I will find the most amount of money, for the least amount of effort, that will give me enough time to blow on reading, movies, and video games. That’s all I aspire to really. That only changed slightly to accommodate my daughter. So now you have an idea. I'm nothing. One of those beings whose only a step above a societal parasite (except being a parasite makes you a billionaire these days).
And yet? I set the neighbor's dog on fire.
I didn’t do it on purpose. Not really anyway. I think I did it with my freaking mind. It seemed to come out of my fingers. I don’t know. I made fire, and it reduced this big angry mastiff to nothing but ash in a few short seconds. Bones, claws, fur, all of it just disintegrated, then the wind blew the ash away.
I sat there, one hand on Lina’s stroller, the other raised towards where the charging dog had been, my eyes wide with shock and my jaw at my feet. I blinked a few times. Trying to make sense of things.
I tried running through how the hell I reached this point. I was taking Lina for a walk in her stroller, I saw that big jackass dog (I think it’s name was Roofus) who had somehow escaped his yard (for the umpteenth time), and he had come bounding at my daughter and I as fast as his fat doggy legs could carry him. My brain had only just processed that the big, aggressive dog was out again, when it finally clicked that it was bounding towards me and my baby girl. That thing had nipped me in the past, but I never pressed charges. Why should I bother? But now I wish I had. Now it could hurt my baby. Shit. Why didn’t I confront our neighbor? I have to stop it! I thought.
I got between the approaching dog and Lina’s stroller. I raised my hand to do… something. I think I was hoping the dog would slow down. It didn’t. And then… there was a flash of weird yellow light. The dog didn’t have time to make a sound of pain or surprise. It just dissolved in a superheated ball of flames.
I lowered my hand, trying to make sense of it as the ash blew into the wind. I glanced down at Lina. She smiled up at me, and she even laughed. That was the first time I’d ever seen her laugh. I just kind of blinked.
“Ron! Hey Ron!” Someone was running towards me. I kept staring at Lina for a second before it registered. It was Harold. The white trashy dude who owned Roofus and refused to tie him up (while also refusing to either fix his fence or keep a closer eye on his big aggressive dog). You see that flash, man?” It wasn't even noon, and I could already smell the alcohol (despite the stench of burnt fur).
“Uh… yeah.”
“You know what the fuck that was?”
“Uh… no.” It wasn’t a lie.
“Shit. You seen my ‘dawg?’ Roofus done broke the fence again.”
“… no.” That absolutely was a lie.
“Damn, man. What’s that smell?”
“I… smells like a burning animal.” That one wasn’t a lie either.
“Sheeet. Look at the grass here!” He pointed at the spot where his big angry dog had vanished. There was a circle of scorched black grass.
Oh shit. I fucked up miss Peasley’s lawn went my idiot brain. “Huh,” my mouth said.
“Prolly a squirrel blew up on the power line. Ha! That bitch Peasley is gonna be pissed.”
Ugh. You’re such a douche, Harold. Holy crap I blew up your dog. Or did I? Maybe he’s right and it was an electrical line?
“Lemme know if you see Roofus!” Harold went on his way, leaving me utterly bewildered. What could I do? After standing there, terrified, for another minute, I took Lina home and ended up spending the rest of the morning desperately trying to coax her to eat while she screamed at me.
So yeah. I can apparently blow up dogs with my hands. No fucking clue how I did it. That happened a week ago. Miss Peasley got the HOA to contact electricians to check the power lines. They didn’t find any damage, but nobody else could figure out what had scorched Peasley’s lawn. The prevailing theory is Harold’s. An animal got scorched by the power lines and fell on her lawn. So they replaced those lines.
Apparently I’m the only one who knows that Harold’s dog blew up. Nobody else saw a thing. I would feel worse, but Harold managed to be a misogynistic prick even while he was sadly putting up ‘missing dog’ posters (dude was muttering about some teenage girl's shorts, like it was any of his business). And Roofus wasn’t a friendly dog. There were lots of stories about him terrorizing the neighborhood. Harold had even been charged over it.
All the same… I think I fucking blew up a dog and I keep having nightmares about it. I love dogs. I can’t afford to care for one, but Christ, I don’t want to blow one up! How the fuck did I even do that?
I’ve spent the week repeating over and over that it didn’t happen. Even if it did, it couldn’t have been me. Something else blew up the dog. Maybe Peasley secretly planted a land mine? She’s an eighty year old lady, so it’s unlikely… but it has to be more likely than me throwing fire at a dog that disintegrated it, right?
I was almost convinced, then I blew something else up. A little vase. It had housed an orchid at one time, but we’d both failed to keep the poor thing alive. We had yet to throw it away. I had set Lina in her bassinet, and dragged it into the kitchen where I could watch it while I tried to do a few chores. My cat, Sabrina, decided to get the zoomies and started bolting through the house. Eventually, she found herself leaping on top of the kitchen counters while I yelled at her to stop. I startled her, mid run. She lurched. She hit that vase with the dead plant in it.
I panicked. I was utterly convinced that the vase was about to fly straight into the bassinet and give my baby a concussion or worse. Despite the fact that I was nowhere near it, I thought to myself ‘I have to stop it!’ And when I thought that? The fire came back, scorched the little pot, and shattered it into a billion little pieces which clattered to the floor. Only then did it occur to me that Lina’s bassinet was nowhere near any of the counters, much less right next to the falling vase. I tried telling myself that the cat just knocked the vase down. But I fucking saw it happen. I saw the fireball shatter the vase long before it hit the floor. Honestly, I should be glad I didn’t blow up the cat.
Something really fucking weird is going on. I tried setting other things on fire. Nothing works. No matter how hard I “focus” or “concentrate.”
It only seems to happen when I think Lina is in danger. Do parents get superpowers I don’t know about? Is Lina doing this? She’s been weirdly chipper every time it happens. Furthermore, I keep noticing weird shit about her. I swear her eyes changed color. And not just in that ‘newborn baby growing up’ kind of way. It was like a flash of yellow that happened while I was trying to play peekaboo. She hadn’t really reacted to the game, so I figured she wasn’t old enough to register. But I tried one more time, and when I moved my hands, for a second? She had freaking yellow lizard eyes. But the moment passed and they were back to that baby blue. She just giggled up at me, cute as a button. Then she spit up a third of the formula I spent the last hour feeding her. Stuff smelled like pure gasoline.
Somehow? I was still trying to tell myself it was all in my head. The fires were some weird coincidence. Lina had a tummy ache or something that made her spit-up smell weird, and everything else was just in my imagination. I definitely didn’t see Lina floating an inch or so above her sleeping pad. My spouse, Chris, definitely didn’t hear me growling like a monster in my sleep. I definitely didn’t accidentally set fire to the diaper pail. And of course, the disappearance of Roofus, had nothing to do with me.
But then Chris dropped a bomb on me. I was once again struggling to feed our daughter one evening. She just wanted nothing to do with the bottle. Chris never seems to have trouble feeding her, with a bottle or nursing. For some reason? Lina just didn’t want to accept a bottle from me. I was frustrated. Chris saw it on my face.
“Hold on, Ron. There’s… there’s a weird trick I’ve been using. It started by accident. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you because… well… It's insane. And gross. But… It works. I use it in bottles and with nursing. And I never got to add it to the formula pitcher you're using. So you may as well know…” they looked very conflicted. Scared even.
“Chris. What do you mean? Is everything okay?” Chris swallowed nervously, then gathered their courage.
“Here. Let me see her bottle.” Confused, and weirdly intrigued, I handed it over, trying to ignore Lina’s angry wailing. Chris took it and turned around, hiding whatever they were doing. I heard them unscrew the bottle, then briefly hiss in pain, and a few seconds later, they screwed the lid back on, turned around, and handed it back. “Okay. Try feeding her now.”
I cocked an eyebrow, and glanced down at my daughter, who glared up at me (adorably). Cautiously, I offered her the nipple of the bottle. She fussed a bit at first, but then she tasted the liquid. She latched right on and happily began chugging away. I’ve never had her feed so easily with me. “Okay. What the heck did you do? She hardly ever eats this well for me.”
I glanced at Chris. They looked conflicted, and a little pale. They didn’t say a word. They just held up their left hand, and showed me a bleeding cut they had on their palm.
“I… you cut yourself?” I had no idea what they were implying.
“Blood, Ron. I added my blood.”
“You…” it took me a second. Finally my brain caught up. “You’ve been feeding her your blood?” I felt my mouth go dry and my face go pale. I struggled just to ask the question.
“Just adding a bit to the pitcher is usually enough.”
“I… what about nursing?”
They raised an eyebrow at me. “Have you seen my nipples lately?”
Suddenly the empty cases of nip guards and nipple cream made a lot more sense to me.
“How… did you figure it out?” I wondered.
“By mistake. It was when you went to get us food. I was having trouble getting her to latch at first, remember? But then, she started sucking on my finger. Cried when I pulled away. When she stopped I saw I had a cut. She was sucking on my cut.”
“Oh my god,” I said, as I combined my experiences with Chris’s in my head.
I think my spouse misinterpreted my reaction. They seemed to break down in tears, begging me for forgiveness.
“I know it’s fucked up! I didn’t know what to do! She wouldn’t eat unless I added a bit of blood! Please tell me you understand!”
I looked into their pretty blue eyes. The ones I felt so lucky to have fallen for. I was inwardly freaking out myself. All I managed to sputter out was “I think I blew up the neighbor’s dog.” We had a looong conversation after that.
So Chris and I are all caught up with each other. We’re on the same page. There’s definitely some really weird shit going on in our house, but fucked if we know what any of it is. I decided to see if anyone here had some ideas. Neither of us really want to contact the church. But hell. We’re getting desperate. Lina just keeps growing. What will she want when she starts eating solids?
2023.03.25 00:27 unclefishbits I'm in California, so I thought I would snap a picture of these rare geographic unicorns from Iceland, because they are not going to last long. What is wild is Eimvork's Vor Gin looks like it disappeared. Anyone know the story?
 | submitted by unclefishbits to Gin [link] [comments] |
2023.03.25 00:21 BadTakeBrian Enterprise Group ($E.TO, $ETOLF.OTC): Cash Flow Machine, Deep Value, Squeeze Potential
 | Intro submitted by BadTakeBrian to pennystocks [link] [comments] I should start by saying that the search for a company like Enterprise began under the following pretense: I have a bearish view of where I think broad markets are going by the end of 2023 and wanted somewhere to hide out while still maintaining the potential to double my investment under any broad market scenario. Enterprise Group fits that bill. The Company is a niche energy service company that provides site infrastructure services to remote western Canadian production sites for pipelines, construction and oil and gas sectors in western Canada. I believe Enterprise is a fantastic and deeply overlooked company fit for retail investors (like me) who have the ability to enter a position ahead of institutions catching hold of the name. The core thesis on Enterprise is: - Low correlation to broad markets - High growth and 30% cash flow yield - Healthy balance sheet providing ~$20M in dry powder for potential non-dilutive M&A - Share buyback in place to support stock - Unique low-emission fleet of equipment to grow market share - Structural market expansion History Enterprise was founded in 2004, though as it stands today, is a much leaner and higher growth business compared to what it was in the last bull market for energy in 2008-2014. Where many competitors went out of business during the bear market between 2014-2021, Enterprise wisely divested from lower margin business units, preserved its balance sheet and due to its unique fleet of equipment – was able to maintain cash flow positive during this time. M&A is part of the corporate DNA of Enterprise and has had a successful track record on that front. While others were still reeling from previous years downturn or still trying to repair their balance sheets in 2020/2021, Enterprise was able to utilize the strength of its balance sheet and positive cash flows to countercyclically invest into new business units to position themselves for the eventual return of energy markets we are now experiencing. A great example of this is the launch of Evolution Power in 2022, which offers a fleet of low-emission microgrids that power the entire production site with natural gas, replacing diesel generators. In doing so, EP reduces CO2 emissions by 30%, gives Enterprise higher margins, is safer and more efficient for the customer. As one of the few “green options” in the energy sector, they are becoming the first choice for larger oil and gas clients subject to Canada’s “heavy emitter” penalties. Market The large majority of Enterprise’s sales are derived from western Canadian energy producers, with a greater share of natural gas producers compared to oil producers within its book of clients. Though Enterprise profits have less commodity risk than their actual producing clients, the Company nevertheless is derivatively exposed to energy prices (though I believe there are some factors that reduce the correlation that I will get into later). After years of producers not investing into large exploration projects due to ESG mandates, regulations and low prices, the outlook on energy markets looks extremely promising for producers and has already begun to see a notable uptick in production levels that are expected to continue for a market that looks undersupplied in years ahead. More specifically to Enterprise’s western Canadian market, there are some very visible demand drivers on the horizon based on new pipeline capacity that provide a near certain increase in demand for services like Enterprise. This demand is structured within tens of billions of dollars of sunk infrastructure capital to provide a roadmap of oil and gas (mostly gas) production expansion in western Canada. Beginning in 2023 with the completion of NGTL network expansion (gas) and TMX pipeline (oil), there will continue to be major new export capacity to come online nearly every year this decade, with recent first nations LNG projects advancing on the west coast. For Canadian gas producers, the pipelines will allow them to access higher priced Asian markets, where prices are often multiples of those received in Canada or the US. You can bet there is going to be prompt increases to production to ship whatever they can to those markets, given the preferred economics. Financials Enterprise just recently released their full year 2022 financials March 20, 2023, where they posted fantastic results. Rather than do a deep dive into financials today, will simply share some important highlights and suggest reviewing their financials below: (https://www.sedar.com/DisplayCompanyDocuments.do?lang=EN&issuerNo=00020838) https://preview.redd.it/ogc5c1c9hrpa1.png?width=1084&format=png&auto=webp&s=0fc4acc759557050f871276caaa8ce07de9c66a0 Additional items: - Bought back 1.8M shares in 2022 - Secured US OTC listing to increase access to US investors - Renewed buyback program - Available tax losses of $0.17/share - Purchased $5.6M of new equipment - Subsequently signed one of largest contracts in company history in Jan 2023 Share Structure Enterprise currently has 50.3M shares outstanding, with another 5M options exercisable at $0.45. Notably, management/board were buyers in the open market over the last few years and now hold over 40% of all shares outstanding. This is where I think it gets uniquely attractive for us retail investors. Since the last energy cycle, nearly all of the research analysts that covered the sector have moved on, meaning the few analysts left covering the space are focused on large-cap players and there are none covering companies the size of Enterprise. There is a window for retail to build a position in a hugely profitable company with a tight share structure subject to a potential squeeze before institutions begin to take notice. Finally – and maybe most importantly – 2022 saw a unique trading dynamic occur due to a large shareholder selling down their position. This shareholder accidentally accumulated a >10% ownership position, unknowingly triggering a requirement to file any purchase/sale of stock (see sedi filings to confirm). That shareholder then spent the entire year reducing their position below 10% but because there was not a large float of shares trading hands, effectively put a ceiling on the stock the entire year and single-handedly compressed the multiple. This does not appear to have been done with ill intent but explains why the stock bounced between a floor of around $0.38 (supported by the buyback) and $0.42 (where the shareholder was selling) despite everything going right for the company operationally. In January, the company bought back the final tranche of shares needed to get that shareholder below the 10% threshold, thereby clearing the way for share price to better track the improving cash flow of the company. Valuation Enterprise is currently trading at a deeply discounted valuation and historically low multiple, which is ironic considering this may be the best market they've ever operated in. As a particular point of reference, a comparison below for the 2020-2022 periods for EV/EBITDA and some other metrics that could influence the deserved multiple such as growth, profitability, and credit risk. I’ve also already listed a few reasons to be bullish on their future market (pipelines coming online beginning this year), which is consistent with management’s outlook from their MD&A that “…customers have indicated they will continue to operate at increased activities through the remainder of the year”. Though a 10-11x multiple shouldn't be expected moving forward, you can see the impact of having a large shareholder exiting with a small float and how a lack of share price movement can lose investor attention. Over the course of a year, Enterprise added over $5M in EBITDA (+175%) and barely saw its valuation change at all! *2022 year using current share price At a current 4.2x EV/EBITDA, Enterprise is trading far below the 6x it has traded in previous cycles and which seems very reasonable as a base case scenario. It would take very little notional buying for that re-rate to occur and for those able to establish a position at these prices, it would represent a 74% return. https://preview.redd.it/vhxfi754orpa1.png?width=867&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5e4b94325c510a57a9de0cf6caae70915db4f4d Finally, if Enterprise is seen through a different valuation lens, the company just released in their earnings that equity holders would be due $0.68/share ($0.39 current share price) if the company simply sold all of their equipment at book value. Multiple arguments to show that Enterprise is undervalued. Outlook Enterprise has a strong outlook on market fundamentals to support top line growth, increasing pricing power to maintain/increase margins and new revenue potential coming online with equipment additions. Given history of M&A activity, balance sheet flexibility and the fact some targets are still not fully recovered from 2014-2021 period, it would be very surprising if the company did not make one or more acquisitions in the near-future. Management has said as much on their recent twitter spaces interview. Fortunately for equity holders, management does not have to dilute shareholders while its equity remains undervalued. With $20M in unused credit at their disposal (their current market cap), they would have the ability to make a material acquisition without needing any equity at all. Even if they were to make an even larger acquisition, their debt providers are Ninepoint Partners (via Waygar Capital), who are home to none other than Eric Nuttall, who is the largest and most bullish energy fund manager on earth. You can bet that if the right target came along with the right assets/cash flow, Ninepoint would be more than happy to increase the size of that facility if they aren’t able to secure some seller's financing. If we assume a slight liquidity discount on a PrivateCo acquisition, $20M at 3x EV/EBITDA could buy around $6-7M of incremental EBITDA, effectively doubling the “cash flow” of the company before considering any synergies. Prospect of cross-selling new rental equipment would be high. If something like this came to pass and they grew to a $15M EBITDA business, there would undoubtedly be a whole new supply of small institutions that would be interested and could be an attractive buyout candidate for private equity, who they’re currently competing with for acquisitions. Risk Commodity Risk: This being the most obvious risk to the company. If we were to go back to the dark ages (2014-2021), there would be a material impact on Enterprise financials. I believe commodity risk for Enterprise is mitigated for 3 reasons: 1) A decade of underinvestment in global energy supplies has the entire spectrum of energy prognosticators projecting supply deficits for oil and continued growth in global natural gas demand. Continued regulatory hurdles, ESG capital restrictions, end of US shale hypergrowth, and return-of-capital mandates by EnergyCo shareholders make it less likely we see reckless supply additions. Adding to that, we’ve now got China reopening, OPEC defending prices, and US supposedly refilling the SPR at some point (we’ll see). 2) Infrastructure Developments: Canada has abundant reserves, with some of the cleanest and lowest-cost natural gas in the world with a painful lack of export capacity. A number of pipeline and LNG export facilities are set to come online, incentivizing a production increase to fill that pipeline. To me, this is the most powerful reason why I believe Enterprise has much lower commodity risk and has been repeated by recent research put out by RBC on the prospects of NE BC natural gas outlook. 3) Tier 1 Client Book: Enterprise’s clients are some of the largest energy producers in North America, meaning they plan their development programs with a multi-year outlook that is less sensitive to short term price action. Further, many of its clients are actual providing the supply for LNG Canada (Sinopec, Petronas, Market Downturn: No doubt we are entering a period of uncertainty, with global liquidity being reduced and the risk of recession on the horizon. I think this should be viewed in two ways: 1) Operations: Looking back, more often than not a significant global recession is more likely to reduce the rate of growth in oil demand rather than actually reducing demand. Natural gas is mostly used for heating and electricity generation, making it relatively inelastic as well. Global GDP is also more evenly spread between OECD and non-OECD, meaning growing countries like India will be less responsive to tightening financial conditions. 2) Share Price: Enterprise is tracking towards a trailing 4x EV/EBITDA, with structural growth catalysts on the horizon (ie. pipelines) and excess cash flow available for buybacks. Even in a market panic, it is likely cash flows can continue to grow, providing continued support to the share price via buybacks. 3) Recent meltdown in energy markets had almost no impact on Enterprise share price and would suspect that increased buybacks would be there for support if share price were to slide further. It is the risk-adjusted return with fundamentals to back it up that make Enterprise special within the micro-cap space. Summary 1) Operating conditions look very strong for the company based on energy cycle and the foundation of new pipeline-related production increases in western Canada. 2) Enterprise is a pure-play on western Canada with major well-capitalized nat gas clients poised for growth. 3) Small size and cap structure provide potential for significant torque in share price. 4) Enterprise has debt flexibility such that they don’t need to dilute equity at these valuations if M&A opportunities arise. 5) Extremely profitable with 30%+ cash flow yield and optionality for buybacks or further investment in expanding equipment fleet for evolution power. 6) Significant selling pressure from large shareholder has now ended after tendering shares to treasury in January 2023. 7) A single large new shareholder has potential to re-rate the stock to base case of 6x EV/EBITDA multiple. 8) Equity re-rate and M&A could see this company become very large, very quickly – drawing further flows of capital to the name at sufficient scale or be a prime takeout candidate for PE. Disclosure: I own shares in Enterprise. This is not financial advise. Please do your own due diligence. |
2023.03.25 00:12 MaterialNew7736 ink stain removers
I forgot to take a pen out of a pocket and it went through the washer and dryer. It stained some clothes. Is there a dry cleaner or laundry mat that can potentially remove these stains? The diy tricks didn’t work well
submitted by MaterialNew7736 to Lethbridge [link] [comments]
2023.03.24 22:52 kcheves Concrete Block BBQ Island Project
Following up on a comment i made in a post by u/Hop1226, here are some details of a project I’m just wrapping up. I did the design and material selection and my very talented stone mason did the work.
This was the original concept.
https://i.imgur.com/2ckHnlL.jpg
Here are photos of the finished product. You’ll notice that the patio cover is missing. The original plan was to fabricate this from Corten steel, but the cost was going to be crazy and we deferred this until later. We also did not carry the architectural stone onto the adjacent stucco walls - one of many cost savings choices we made. Looking back, I have zero regrets about the choices we made to keep the budget under control…except maybe the deletion of my bocce court. :(
https://imgur.com/a/o7KKBhZ/
Here’s the rough gas line, electrical, and drain work.
https://i.imgur.com/wc2xCDm.jpg
Even though we had it rough plumbed, we ended up not putting in a sink because a) I had one in my old BBQ island and rarely used it. And b) the outdoor kitchen is adjacent to our indoor kitchen, and I have a hose nearby if I need it. And c) the island was already getting huge, and there was not a great place to put a sink. And d) there were permit requirements for sinks. And e) sinks are where crickets and lizards go to die.
We trenched and then placed the first course of block. The electrical was run under the block and then brought up to a central location in the back wall of the island. Where needed, he poured short concrete walls to achieve the final dimensions.
https://imgur.com/a/QJqee4W/
Here’s a view with most of the island built up. The slab that will support the smoker has already been poured, and he’s starting to build the forms for the countertop.
https://i.imgur.com/s4fNy5f.jpg
You can see two of the j-boxes on the back of the island. There are three outlets total on the outside walls (plus one between the BBQ and side burner for a rotisserie) and 4 that are accessible inside the island for appliances. I also ran conduit between the BBQ island and an adjacent fire pit area in case I want to run AC or low voltage wiring (e.g. speaker wire) to that location. Photos of the fire pit are at the end of this post.
All of the conduit is burried in the block or in the poured countertops. My mason used a propane torch to bend the conduit smoothly so we could pull wires later. Very cool.
https://imgur.com/a/0FBVYRt/
Here are some shots of the forms he created for the countertops.
https://imgur.com/a/3A43sZy/
There were several pours required to create the openings for the appliances and storage drawers and doors.
Here’s a pic with the countertop poured. I really like the way the cantilever was constructed. We debated having two counter heights with a backsplash between them, but I think this looks cleaner.
https://imgur.com/a/E9slawq/
It’s not shown, but the inside of the island is brown coated and the floor is poured concrete.
The outside was brown coated, and then covered with architectural stone.
https://imgur.com/a/tzKOXeD/
We decided that we didn’t like the little shelf you can see poking out under the various openings, so it was removed.
Our original plan was to use granite for the countertops, but we couldn’t find any we loved. We ended up using large format porcelain tiles that a have a cool concrete look, and saved several thousand dollars. We kept the grout lines as thin as possible to make it look more like a slab. We also used a 4” tall strip of tiles to cover the exposed edge of the slab, and coated the underide of the counter overhang with smooth concrete.
https://i.imgur.com/SfNicRp.jpg
A few other details…
My daughter gave this to me, it’s from a local brewery and adds a nice touch.
https://imgur.com/a/yXZP39V/
The grill is a 32” natural gas Artisan, which is the budget brand from Alfresco. I was originally going to get a 36” DCS grill, but we didn’t need something that large, and I’ve got an XL egg for turkeys and other big cooks.
https://imgur.com/a/tQQmYoK/
There are stainless access doors under the BBQ to get to the gas valves and outlets, and storage doors on the far side of the smoker for storing charcoal and accessories. There is also a unit with a double trash bin pullout and a storage drawer. I bought these directly from the company (Pacific Coast Manufacturing) that makes the house brand units for Barbecues Galore and BBQ guys.
https://imgur.com/a/JSy4T5S/
The egg, side burner and fridge were re-used from my previous BBQ island. The fridge is on the North side of the house and does not get direct sun.
The stools are teak, also left over from our old BBQ island. I had to shorten the legs because the new countertop is thicker and the height from my knees to the bottom of the counter was tight.
There’s a cheap 55” TV hanging behind the island. It is on an articulating arm so that we can watch from the bar or from a sitting area we have next to the house. It’s under the eaves and covered. I’m not sure how much we’ll use this, but it would have been harder to add after we repaired the stucco.
The pavers are pre-poured concrete from a company called Stepstone Pavers. They still need to be cleaned and sealed, which will make them a shade darker and more uniform in color. They are sand set and are 2” thick. We used these for all of the pool and patio decking, and for several walkways through the yard.
Finally, I mentioned that I ran electrical to an adjacent fire pit area. It’s not part of the kitchen, but we like the way it turned out. This area has a concrete border, and the fire bowl and chairs sit on polished pebble.
https://i.imgur.com/guzMxUh.jpg
With the exception of the trees, the plants you can see are still in containers, they will get planted this week.
Thanks for looking!
submitted by kcheves to OutdoorKitchens [link] [comments]
This was the original concept.
https://i.imgur.com/2ckHnlL.jpg
Here are photos of the finished product. You’ll notice that the patio cover is missing. The original plan was to fabricate this from Corten steel, but the cost was going to be crazy and we deferred this until later. We also did not carry the architectural stone onto the adjacent stucco walls - one of many cost savings choices we made. Looking back, I have zero regrets about the choices we made to keep the budget under control…except maybe the deletion of my bocce court. :(
https://imgur.com/a/o7KKBhZ/
Here’s the rough gas line, electrical, and drain work.
https://i.imgur.com/wc2xCDm.jpg
Even though we had it rough plumbed, we ended up not putting in a sink because a) I had one in my old BBQ island and rarely used it. And b) the outdoor kitchen is adjacent to our indoor kitchen, and I have a hose nearby if I need it. And c) the island was already getting huge, and there was not a great place to put a sink. And d) there were permit requirements for sinks. And e) sinks are where crickets and lizards go to die.
We trenched and then placed the first course of block. The electrical was run under the block and then brought up to a central location in the back wall of the island. Where needed, he poured short concrete walls to achieve the final dimensions.
https://imgur.com/a/QJqee4W/
Here’s a view with most of the island built up. The slab that will support the smoker has already been poured, and he’s starting to build the forms for the countertop.
https://i.imgur.com/s4fNy5f.jpg
You can see two of the j-boxes on the back of the island. There are three outlets total on the outside walls (plus one between the BBQ and side burner for a rotisserie) and 4 that are accessible inside the island for appliances. I also ran conduit between the BBQ island and an adjacent fire pit area in case I want to run AC or low voltage wiring (e.g. speaker wire) to that location. Photos of the fire pit are at the end of this post.
All of the conduit is burried in the block or in the poured countertops. My mason used a propane torch to bend the conduit smoothly so we could pull wires later. Very cool.
https://imgur.com/a/0FBVYRt/
Here are some shots of the forms he created for the countertops.
https://imgur.com/a/3A43sZy/
There were several pours required to create the openings for the appliances and storage drawers and doors.
Here’s a pic with the countertop poured. I really like the way the cantilever was constructed. We debated having two counter heights with a backsplash between them, but I think this looks cleaner.
https://imgur.com/a/E9slawq/
It’s not shown, but the inside of the island is brown coated and the floor is poured concrete.
The outside was brown coated, and then covered with architectural stone.
https://imgur.com/a/tzKOXeD/
We decided that we didn’t like the little shelf you can see poking out under the various openings, so it was removed.
Our original plan was to use granite for the countertops, but we couldn’t find any we loved. We ended up using large format porcelain tiles that a have a cool concrete look, and saved several thousand dollars. We kept the grout lines as thin as possible to make it look more like a slab. We also used a 4” tall strip of tiles to cover the exposed edge of the slab, and coated the underide of the counter overhang with smooth concrete.
https://i.imgur.com/SfNicRp.jpg
A few other details…
My daughter gave this to me, it’s from a local brewery and adds a nice touch.
https://imgur.com/a/yXZP39V/
The grill is a 32” natural gas Artisan, which is the budget brand from Alfresco. I was originally going to get a 36” DCS grill, but we didn’t need something that large, and I’ve got an XL egg for turkeys and other big cooks.
https://imgur.com/a/tQQmYoK/
There are stainless access doors under the BBQ to get to the gas valves and outlets, and storage doors on the far side of the smoker for storing charcoal and accessories. There is also a unit with a double trash bin pullout and a storage drawer. I bought these directly from the company (Pacific Coast Manufacturing) that makes the house brand units for Barbecues Galore and BBQ guys.
https://imgur.com/a/JSy4T5S/
The egg, side burner and fridge were re-used from my previous BBQ island. The fridge is on the North side of the house and does not get direct sun.
The stools are teak, also left over from our old BBQ island. I had to shorten the legs because the new countertop is thicker and the height from my knees to the bottom of the counter was tight.
There’s a cheap 55” TV hanging behind the island. It is on an articulating arm so that we can watch from the bar or from a sitting area we have next to the house. It’s under the eaves and covered. I’m not sure how much we’ll use this, but it would have been harder to add after we repaired the stucco.
The pavers are pre-poured concrete from a company called Stepstone Pavers. They still need to be cleaned and sealed, which will make them a shade darker and more uniform in color. They are sand set and are 2” thick. We used these for all of the pool and patio decking, and for several walkways through the yard.
Finally, I mentioned that I ran electrical to an adjacent fire pit area. It’s not part of the kitchen, but we like the way it turned out. This area has a concrete border, and the fire bowl and chairs sit on polished pebble.
https://i.imgur.com/guzMxUh.jpg
With the exception of the trees, the plants you can see are still in containers, they will get planted this week.
Thanks for looking!
2023.03.24 21:53 EldritchEggoWaffle WARDEN OF THE WEAVER - PART 62: "A HARSH WORLD; HOPE EVEN IN DARKNESS"
•1•
Wings worked against wind, as the squad continued their aerial sprint.
In spite of their best efforts, they couldn't close the distance soon enough. They were still much too far from the city to gain any new insight into the attack--too far away to do anything, too far away to even know much of anything.
High Knight Von and Sergeant One-Wing led their respective squads onward, roaring through the air over the high grasses. Locust Spire was just on the edge of the horizon now. Within view, but still out of reach. Already, Von could feel that something was very wrong in the great Jikkellian settlement. Nagging dread in the pit of her gut gnawed at her as she drove forward. For a while, the wind carried with it the smell of smoke and ash. However, now those scents had dissipated, almost as if the wind had suddenly changed directions. The orange-red glow of flame had settled over the city like a corona, when the grand Spire of jade jutting up from the city's skyline first became visible. Now, the glow had softened to the point it may have no longer have been there at all.
And the Spire itself--the city's namesake, and jewel of Jikkellia--did not seem quite right. Von couldn't quite say why, but it seemed somehow... different; wrong; changed in some way.
What was going on? Was this what Lord Vellnoth was trying to tell them?
Come to think of it... what HAD Lord Vellnoth told them? Aside from ordering them to release the Amphibian and the suspected terrorist, there really hadn't been much information relayed, had there?
Von found it strange. She could hardly recall what the Gardener In Green had said, at all. She would've assumed something as life altering as speaking directly to the God of all Jikk would have left a greater impression on her. She'd assumed it would have inspired her mind, rekindled her soul. As it was, the event had hardly done more than leave her confused, feeling like a lost hatchling who'd just been introduced to something they didn't understand; some concept or experience they needed an adult to explain.
Her mind quickly turned from looking inward, to gazing out at the grasses stretched before her. Just ahead. There was movement.
Von glanced over to her right at One-Wing, but the frown on his face told her he'd already noticed the same thing she had.
High Knight Von drew her sword. Like clockwork, every Knight and Spire Watch behind her followed suit, drawing their own weapons. One-Wing was the last to unsheath his blade. He'd only just readied it when the sound and heatwave of an explosion broke out behind them.
The entire rear flank was taken out in a single strike. The remains of those soldiers caught in the blast were sent hurtling to the ground like small blackened meteorites.
"Post-Six!" Von called out.
The soldiers followed their orders--and their training--falling into a new, defensive position. Or, at least, they began to take up the Post-Six formation. They were interrupted partway through by a second explosion.
Where the fuck were the blasts coming from?
More body parts and scorched remains rained down to the landscape below.
"Ground!" One-Wing bellowed.
What was left of their rapidly thinning squad dropped altitude, coming down for a quick landing.
Von frantically scanned the surrounding grasses as she came to a landing with the others. She saw no one. There was no cover, and it was midday. There wasn't anywhere to hide, yet she still didn't see a single soul.
"No one move," said a commanding voice behind her.
Every head swiveled around, to face the assailant.
Von saw one, then three, then six seperate figures appear behind the soldiers. From the corners of her vision, more appeared. She could hear others, by the sound of their bootfalls and the clanking of their armor.
High Knight Von and her entire squad were completely surrounded.
The figures were Nerthran; mothmen of the Jagged Fields Kingdom. A lot of them. Von counted at least fifty, if not more. Ordinarily, Nerthran wore silver robes of fine silk, as part of their customs. These particular mothmen were wearing their robes, but had opted to don silver chainmail overtop the garments--or, in some cases, even steel plate. They wielded exotic-looking weapons. Crecent-shaped waraxes and ornate katanas; elaborately crafted claymores and thrusting blades shaped like wedges of pie. Even their more familiar arms--their longswords, daggers, and polearms--had been crafted in a way that would have intrigued even the greatest Jikkelian blacksmiths. Yet, of all the weaponry these mothfolk wielded, none stood out more than that of the one who'd stepped forward to call out.
The mothman called out a second time, shouting a single word: "Hold!" He held his unique weapon in both hands, gripping it at the center. It was a cold black color; as cold and black as a Lich's heart. It was as long as the mothman was tall. He held it at a tilt so that it crossed his body diagonally, like a large dark strike-through on a warning symbol. It was shaped like a staff. At both ends, it split off into two prongs like a serpent's tongue.
Now, Von began taking notice of the emblems on the breastplates, gauntlets, and bracers of the foes before her. They showed a symbol; a streak of silver running through a pair of moth wings, crossed by two blades. Her mind searched for meaning. After a moment, recognition finally set in.
Stonewing Pillar Mercenary Band.
They were ruthless criminals and sellswords, well-known in Jagged Fields but infamous even in Jikkellia. She'd never dealt with them personally, but she'd learned about them while undergoing the political and diplomacy training required to reach the rank of High Knight.
Bad news. That's what they were.
Von raised her sword. "You're interfering in official business!" This hardly encapsulated the scope of their crime (especially after launching a direct attack) but it was all she could think to say in the moment.
The mothman smiled. "Actually, you're all about to assist us with our business."
One-Wing scoffed at this. "What makes you think we'd do that?"
His smile broadened. "What makes you think you have a choice?"
•2•
They had a single goal now: reach the statue before the worms reached the surface...
Quijj took the lead. Councilor Lemma informed him she had wings of her own and therefore did not require his assistance when it came to flight (and also that if he continued treating her like a stack of lumber he needed to carry around, she was going to smack him silly). Quijj did not argue. The Councilor flew right behind him. And right behind her--bringing up the rear--was Flower-Seed. It was not a position he was particularly fond of--what with the worms on the loose and all--but he certainly wouldn't have wanted to be in front, either. Last wasn't as good as being in the middle, but of course, Flower-Seed was a gentlemen and Lemma was one of the city's honored leaders. So, back of the pack it was for ol' Flower-Seed.
They rushed up through the narrow hole in the cavern tunnel with a furious speed that would have made even a hive of Hellflies envious. The tunnel ended at an old well that had fallen into disrepair. In actuality, it had never really been used as a well to begin with. The 'fallen into disrepair' part--as the Councilor had explained--was just a story the Jikk of the city had always told one another. It was the sort of story that had been told so many times, for so many years, no one really questioned it or gave it a second thought. The truth of it was the Council of Three in Days Now Gone had decided to build a false well to cover the hidden entrance to the old city. It was sort of an emergency entrance, should one ever be needed.
If only those Jikk of the distant past had known their secret tunnel would not be used as an emergency entrance, but rather, an emergency exit. If they had known this, then perhaps Quijj, Flower-Seed, and Councilor Lemma could have avoided the problem they currently faced; *the fact that those same long-dead Jikk of yesteryear had elected to board up the false well so as to keep any hapless citizens or curious younglings from inadvertently stumbling upon their secret drop shaft to the old ruins.
Quijj had grunted something about this not being an issue when the Councilor broke the news of this "minor problem." Flower-Seed was fairly certain the old tavern keeper would have grunted the same grunt of reassurance, no matter what the Councilor had said. Quijj was painting himself more and more as the kind of Jikk who would take a sledgehammer to a door, if his key didn't fit. Grunting all the while.
When they reached the end of the shaft, Flower-Seed already knew what would come next. His hunch was confirmed when Quijj cautioned them to cover their ears. Flower-Seed now saw what would follow quite clearly in his mind. And how had he not seen this coming? Of course the crazy old bastard was going to blast his way out. Because of course he was.
Quijj was a valuable ally to have at a time like this, but once the smoke cleared, Flower-Seed hoped he would never again find himself in any dire situations with Quijj again, anytime soon.
Or ever again, if it could be helped.
When this was all over, if he made it out alive, Flower-Seed decided he was going to curl up on a nice warm cot by a hearth someplace, and sleep for about four straight Sun Cycles. Maybe even five. Six, while he was at it. Why not? He would certainly have earned it, if he managed to survive all of this chaos and bedlam.
There was a brilliant flash of white and orange; a roaring, echoing BOOOOM which ripped through the entire shaft. A loud crashing, splintering sound rose from above. Heat and a gust of hot air hit Flower-Seed in the face.
Then, they were shooting straight up into the air, no longer inside the shaft. The midday sky was above them again, fresh air in their lungs and the city stretched out all around them. The three of them came to a landing on a patch of scraggly blue kaynarr grass. The scattered stone and wood shrapnel that had once pretended to be a well lay scattered about, near the place where they'd made their exit. All that was left of the false well was a dark round hole and a broken ring of stone no higher than Flower-Seed's shin. There were black iron gates closing in a section of scrubby looking Debbler trees. The backs of several houses ran along the gate on one side. On the opposite side, a large warehouse loomed over the trio of . They were standing in a fenced-in raindrop shaped lot that had clearly been set aside for the sole purpose of secluding the well. The droplet shape of the lot came to a soft point between two houses, where a narrow gap had been left. The three of them wordlessly made for the opening.
The Councilor took the lead now. As soon as they'd made it to the other side of the row of houses, she took to wing. Quijj and Flower-Seed did likewise. They flew over the streets and walkways of a rundown residential neighborhood. Flower-Seed saw only a small handful of citizens. They were huddled together in small groups, hugging one another or saying silent prayers.
"What did I miss?" Councilor Lemma asked, looking around. "Is the attack over? And... where in Vellnoth's Name did all these vines come from?"
Flower-Seed tried to answer, but couldn't. He wasn't sure he had an answer. His vision had told him of the threats below ground, but hadn't filled him in on everything above the surface. What he and Quijj had witnessed with the Drill Flies seemed too miraculous to retell.
Quijj grunted. "A savior."
"A savior?" Lemma asked uncertainly.
Flower-Seed nodded. They were flying side by side now. "Yeah." He smiled to himself. It felt good to smile. Even after all the devastation and death, the fact that there had been a savior...
He didn't have the words for it.
They cut across the city, reaching the Cobbler's District in what felt like seconds.
"There's the statue," said the Councilor.
They landed just before the carved jade depiction of the Jikk hero of legend: Kylo the Great. This statue was identical to the one that had been in Lo Syy Tett, in Proeliator Plaza. There was another in front of the City of the Wandering Moon, as well as a fourth statue in Irogon Nath. Or, at least that's what Flower-Seed had been taught as a youngling at the Learning Hall. Kylo the Great had been one of the founders of Lo Syy Tett and Locust Spire. A true hero of all Jikkellia. Or so it was said.
Councilor Lemma hurried over to the back of the statue. There was a crevice just large enough for her hand. She stuck the Y of her fingers into the opening. Her face took on a look of deep concentration. After a moment, a panel was revealed in the base of the statue. There were gears, dials, and a single lever.
"Who would have thought," Flower-Seed mused.
The Councilor got to work. She began turning the gears and dials. Her hands became a blur for a moment as she input the secret sequence. Finally, she pulled the lever. Beneath the statue, there was a sound like gravel spilling from a wheelbarrow. Then, there was only silence for a moment.
Slowly, the statue began to rise several inches from the ground. When it stopped, the panel snapped back into place.
"It's done," said the Counilor, breathing a sigh of relief. "I just hope we weren't too late." There was a sadness in her eyes however.
Flower-Seed offered a sympathetic expression. "A bit overwhelming isn't it?"
Lemma waved a dismissive hand. "No, it's just... the Advisors. I just hope they made it out."
"There was no choice," Quijj said firmly.
"Yeah," Flower-Seed agreed. "We had to seal it off. Otherwise, who knows how fast those things might've spread."
The Councilor nodded. "I know. I know. Still... E'Shesh. She tried to protect me. When they were going to place me under arrest. She stood in front of the knights."
They all fell silent.
After a few moments, the three of them began to glance around at one another. A knowing look crept across all three of their faces. In unison, Councilor Lemma, Quijj, and Flower-Seed all whispered: "The Jailer."
Quijj nodded, giving one of his usual grunts. "Uhh huh." His expression had darkened. The look in his eyes was downright frigid.
Flower-Seed shook his head. "I don't know why, but ever since we were down in the ruins... it's been as if a curtain was lifted, from inside my mind."
Councilor Lemma nodded. "I know exactly what you mean. A part of me was fully aware of The Jailer and his deeds in Lo Syy Tett. Yet... it was almost like... I wouldn't quite call it a trance--I wasn't under any spell, or hypnosis, at least not as best as I can tell--but rather... it's as if I held a kind of complacency toward everything. I can see now how truly horrendous that Jikk is. Him, and what he's been doing. But... he must have had some way of making all of us intentionally ignore the problem."
"Mind Mother," said Quijj. "That'd do it."
Flower-Seed eyed the tavern keeper. "Mind Mother? Are those things even real?"
"Oh, they're quite real," said Lemma. "And if that's the case, it would actually explain a lot. From what little I understand of them, those creatures secrete a psychic enzyme that lulls the minds of those around it. The longer it occupies an area--so long as it's well-fed and undisturbed--the wider its field of influence. The Jailer must have somehow compelled a Mind Mother to do his bidding, and influence the minds of Jikkellians in a way that would further his terrible cause."
Flower-Seed considered this. "But if we're about to realize we were being influenced now... does that mean this Mind Mother is dead?"
"Tough to say," said Quijj.
"Indeed," said Lemma.
Quijj grunted in what might have been alarm, or perhaps frustration. He was gazing up at the sky.
"What is it?" Flower-Seed asked. But he already knew. He saw it too now. "What is that?"
His mind was overtaken with yet another vision. He saw the entrance to the underground ruins, as it was being sealed off. Just before the large stone slab blocked the passageway leading down into the City Before The City, five Jikk leapt through the rapidly shrinkly gap and onto the street. Breathless, they collapsed to the stonework.
A fraction of a second later, something else followed in their wake. It did not land, nor did it collapse onto the street as the Jikk had. Instead, it shot upwards into the air. The stone slab closed what remained of the opening.
But it was already too late.
One of the Jikk lying in the street began to scream. Flower-Seed saw that Temporary Councilor E'Shesh had indeed made it out of the ruins before the entrance closed. She was lying on her back, looking up at the sky with a look of pure terror plastered across her face.
The thing that emerged from the opening ignored the Jikk, however. It continued to climb through the air, until it was high above the vine-covered rooftops and city streets below. It rose higher still, before slowing. It hung there in the sky for several seconds, before rocketing away. It was headed toward a confrontation. Flower-Seed could not quite discern the nature of this confrontation, only that it would decide the fates of a great many.
And somehow, the outsiders were involved. Specifically, the outsider who had served as Locust Spire's unexpected savior.
Flower-Seed only caught a brief glimpse of the thing in his mind's eye, but that had been enough to fill him with a deep, almost existential feeling of dread.
The worms. They had fused together to form a single being. High Knight Pyx's plate armor. The thing was using it.
A giant parasitic worm-thing in platemail. It was coming for the outsider. And there was no stopping it...
The vision broke away. Flower-Seed found himself on his knees with dark green blood dripping from his eyes and mouth. The vision had been too much for him. Whatever had altered his curse--whatever force, whether it be supernatural, or simply the blow he'd taken to the head at the front gates--it had amplified it to a magnitude Flower-Seed could not handle. The previous vision had nearly caused him to black out. This one had almost ruptured his brain. He wasn't sure how many more of these "visions" he could take. The next one might very well kill him.
He slapped his palms down on the sidewalk, gasping for air.
"Are you alright?" Councilor Lemma asked.
Flower-Seed shook his head.
"What is it?" Quijj asked with much urgency. "Vision again? Did you see a mothman?"
Flower-Seed shook his head again, then promptly coughed up a thick glob of blood onto the stonework. He tried to stand, but his legs were much too weak.
Quijj hurried over and hooked an arm around Flower-Seed, helping him up. "Easy now," he whispered.
"Worms," Flower-Seed said, almost choking on the word. "Worm man. Man made of worms. Headed for the outsider." He took a deep breath, and that seemed to help. Not much, but a little.
Quijj eased him into a sitting position, before releasing him. He drew his strange weapon, examining it a moment before turning to the Councilor. "Can you tend to him?"
"Where do you think you're going?" she said in a tone of reproach. Her hands were on her hips. She gave the tavern keeper a look that reminded Flower-Seed of the way his mother used to look at him as a youngling, on evenings when he'd been out causing trouble with his friends.
"To stop it," Quijj said matter-of-factly. He turned back toward the sky, using his weapon to point at a dark, fast moving dot in the distance. The worm-thing. It was traveling at a tremendous rate of speed, trailing away from the city.
"Alright. In that case, I'm coming with you," said the Councilor.
Quijj grunted in disapproval.
"Don't give me that. I'm the High Councilor, afterall. I have a sworn duty."
"I'm coming too," Flower-Seed said, struggling to his feet.
"You can't," Lemma said. "You aren't well."
"I'll be fine. C'mon. Besides... you can't just leave me here on the sidewalk by myself."
Quijj eyed them both a moment, before slowly nodding. "Fine. Just keep behind me."
"Don't tell me what to do," said the Councilor smiling warmly. "I swore to serve and protect my city. That includes every last citizen."
"Humff," Quijj grunted.
Lemma regarded Flower-Seed with some concern. "Can you fly?"
"I think so."
"Alright. Then let's be off."
Quijj nodded, grunting again for what may have been the hundredth time.
•3•
The changes still hadn't fully set in.
He scarsely resembled his former self. His body was similar to that of a Jikk's, but his wings were like those of a giant moth. And his body, his wings, his entire form was entirely comprised of vines and sunflowers.
Doka was still getting accustomed to his new form. He was still getting accustomed to a lot of things. Ever since the outsiders first arrived in Lo Syy Tett, Doka had gone through a transformation even his new body could not fully represent. Which was saying quite a lot, considering his new form was the direct physical manifestation of the personal and metaphysical journey he'd undergone. He had died for Gods' sake!
He had died.
He'd died, but there had been no White Staircase. He hadn't seen the face of his creator. He'd seen only darkness, before his soul took up residency inside the Moon Moth.
So much of what he'd believed his entire life had been a lie. It made him wonder what else might also be a lie. What even was the truth? Did such a thing exist?
He had DIED!
His mind kept shouting the words over and over like a chant, as if reminding him of this fact might spark some greater intuition, or reveal some hidden meaning. It did not. The reminder only compounded his confusion with a whole lot of noise echoing inside his own head.
He had died.
This was a fact he was still grappling with, even now. Really, it had only been his body that had died. His spirit, soul, and mind had remained. He was now in a kind of life after afterlife. It was beyond strange, in a way that caused his brain to ache if he thought about it too long.
What a journey it had been since the duel with the Frog.
Doka had been granted revelation and realization, one after the other, in a constant barrage of perspective-shifting events. He'd been shaken to his very core--changed in the most fundamental sense of the word. He'd become someone completely different. Yet, at the heart of it all, he was still him. He was still Doka. Just a far more enlightened, less xenophobic and ignorant Doka.
However, this enlightenment also allowed him to see the problem; a problem that had not yet come up, but would have to be addressed sooner, rather than later.
The problem was, he'd been granted revelation and realization, without any real reflection. He'd been transformed, but hadn't yet had even a single spare moment to contemplate the meaning of it all. He was experiencing the effects, without fully understanding the causes. He'd been changed without stopping to consider the ramifications of so much change, on so many fundamental levels.
These things troubled him, but they were Deep Troubles of the Long Term. There were other, more urgent troubles to deal with in the meantime.
Doka and the soft shell soared over the open grasses; a flower-moth-grasshopper-hybrid and a curtain of shimmering blue. Doka looked down at the sheet of water below him. David was stretched out like one great flat square, casting no shadow as he passed over the land.
"What's wrong, bud?" asked the soft shell, taking notice of Doka's gaze. "You alright?"
Doka stilled his thoughts. "I want you to listen to me, Soft Shell. There's going to be trouble up ahead."
"Uh, yeah. I know. That's why we're coming to the rescue, remember? Don't tell me you're getting nervous?"
It was still a bit strange to hear the human's familiar voice coming from the shimmering polygon of liquid. Of course, the two of them had encountered far stranger things than this, on their journey. Particularly in the Sands. Doka had an idea that if not for some doing on the part of the cloaked figure, both his and the soft shell's minds would have been permanently shattered by the experience.
Doka said, "I don't mean once we reach the woods. There is an ambush waiting for us, well before then. A group of mercenaries."
The human was silent a moment. "I can't detect anything like that. Are you sure?"
"Aye. I'm certain of it. They're concealing themselves from your Energies ability to discern their plot. I am able to see it because of my connection with things that lie beyond the mortal world."
"Alright, well... we'll just have to take them out quickly, so we can hurry up and save Artie and the others."
"No," Doka said firmly. "I want you to continue on without me."
"What? But why? It doesn't make any sense to split up. We'll be able to deal with them faster if there are two of us."
Doka shook his head. "You don't understand. They are the ones who attacked Locust Spire. This is personal for me. You can't be stalled in reaching the woods. Your mission is far too important."
"Is that their big plan? To keep me fighting them, just to delay us getting to Artie?"
"That isn't their intention, but that will be the result of their actions, regardless. They have another reason for wanting to defeat you and I."
"Okay? Well don't leave me hangin. What's the reason?"
"Retaliation for stopping their attack on Locust Spire, for one. These mercenaries will try and destroy anyone who stands in the way of their goals. They wish to sew chaos and confusion. Anarchy. They don't want us undoing any more of what they have done, or what they plan to do. I can sense a dark plot. They're working with agents of Pharoah Dowlmad."
"I don't know that name, but I get some pretty fuckin' evil views from it, for sure."
"That would be an accurate assessment. The leader of these mercenaries wishes to leave the valley. There is something beyond the God Shelves he seeks, which will grant him unyielding power. Even I cannot discern his full intentions, but these are the things I have been able to determine."
"I see. Well, I still don't understand why you have to try and solo these guys. Let me help you knock 'em around. We can--"
"No," Doka said firmly. "This really is something I must do on my own. Please try and respect my wishes."
Doka could almost feel the human's mind turning, formulating further protest. Then, it was as if the soft shell finally came to a conclusion. Perhaps, he finally understood that this meant something to Doka--that this was important; a meaningful step on the path to redemption.
At last, the soft shell relented. "Alright, alright. Fine. But if you get into any trouble... if it's more than you can handle, or you--"
"I know how I call out to you," Doka said.
The human sighed. "Okay. Then I guess we'll split up. Um... where exactly is this ambush happening, anyhow?"
"Start traveling northward. Your mind will tell you when to correct your course again. That won't delay your arrival any. You would have had to travel North for a ways,, once you reached the woods. You're just doing it a bit sooner than necessary."
"Alright. Will do. Just... be careful, Doka. Okay? Seriously."
"And you as well, soft shell," Doka said. "Gods willing, I will see you again soon."
•4•
Deskant was well-versed in the power names held in the In-Between. This was why he'd worked so hard to become a Named Enforcer of the Stonewing Pillar Mercenary Band, on top of his other titles and stations. Most of the mercs in evidence were only foot soldiers, or Prospects. Leader Rave hadn't wanted all of his best warriors away from Home Base, afterall. The Stonewings were far greater in number and power than they'd ever let on to nonmembers. In their line of work, it was always best to hide your hand. You didn't want your rivals (or even your allies) knowing your full capabilities. Which was exactly why Deskant was joined on his current mission by the lower ranking members and memers-in-training, mostly. However, this was not the case with all of the mercs here in the open grasses. There was Angus the Arsonist, Vizloth the Philter, Gondin the Foul Ozmon the Worm-Wielder, Ujak the Unhinged.
Then, of course, there was him. Deskant the Demolisher. This was a moniker he had earned after many years climbing and clawing his way up the ranks of the band. He now filled the role of Chief Communicator, as well as being Rave's Right Hand when they were away from Home Base (even if that title actually belonged to Xider, whenever Xider wasn't around--like now--Deskant was the one who stepped up).
Rave had dubbed him the Demolisher because that was exactly what he did. He demolished things; people, places, anything and everything in his path.
"Just cooperate and everything will be fine," Deskant said.
The she-Jikk in the plate armor only glared at him.
"Yeah, I don't like those worms either, but they're effective." He waved his hand toward the infected Jikk soldiers. "We'll remove the parasites and we won't release anymore on your city, so long as you keep doing exactly as we say."
Ozmon the Worm-Wielder stepped forward, clutching his strange club--a dark, polished thing which which looked more like two long, slender serpents twisted around a stick than an actual club--and nodded. "All be righted, once we've finished here."
The she-Jikk said, "We shouldn't be negotiating with the likes of you."
Deskant laughed. "Good thing this isn't a negotiation. It's a hostage situation. If you hadn't noticed." His eyes scanned the row of infected Jikk. Half their number were currently inhabited by parasites. The other half were standing behind the she-Jikk and the one who'd identified himself as their Sergeant. "Now, remember... when you see the outsider, you flag him down. That's all you have to do. Leave the rest to us."
"Uh, 'Skant?" Angus said uncertainly.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"They're almost here. I can smell 'em."
Deskant smiled again. This was just too easy. "Alright. Everyone out of sight. Time to do what we do best, fellas."
There was a collective cheer from the other mercs. The lot of them moved into position.
•5•
Zruu--Tri-Hook leader and newly appointed Chief of the Clawhook Bandits in the wake of Chief Xovvo's murder--felt the entire world shift with such remarkable suddenness, that for a moment, he was certain he'd lost his grip on reality. One moment, Zruu had been seated in the bridge of the Black Pyramid beside his fellow Tri-Hook members, Coldcradle and Fann. The next thing the new Bandit Chief knew, he was plopping down hard on his ass in a field of knee-high emerald green grass. He'd been watching a formation of Gliders appear through the viewing window of the bridge. Sky Pirates, he had no doubt. He'd been mentally scrambling for a course of action. His mind had of course first turned to the Pyramid's weapons system. However, just as he was about to suggest this to Coldcradle and Fann, all of a sudden, it was as if his chair had been pulled out from under him--and everything else around him ripped away, right along with it.
"What the FUCK?" Coldcradle bellowed.
Zruu saw his two companions in the grass, just a few short meters away. Fann was there beside Coldcradle, looking furious but saying nothing.
Zruu's eyes burned with rage. "My thoughts exactly." He looked up to the sky. The Pirates. They were up there in the Glider Pods. There were also small Gyff craft as well. Collectively, there were four dozen of the bastards. The Sky Pirates made up three seperate V patterns, while the Walking Stick Men flew in a straight row side-by-side. Together, they made what looked like three arrows and line segment. And there, in the patch of sky between them, was the place where the Black Pyramid had been. The place where Zruu himself had been, on the bridge of the Pyramid.
But the Pyramid was gone. And now, Zruu was down here on the ground.
It made no fucking sense.
"Uh, Chief?" Coldcradle said warily.
Zruu took his eyes away from the sky and leveled his gaze at the other Bandit. "What?"
Coldcradle pointed at something lying in the grass a few feet to his left.
Zruu cocked his head to one side. Then, he was back up on his feet in an instant. "Is that who I think it is?"
But he already knew it was. There, motionless on the ground, was the Vakk Onillcoth had sent as honorary reinforcement. Lequell's body was covered in so much blood, it barely looked like a body. Really, it looked more like a slab of meat glazed in strawberry jam. Zruu had never seen tickman blood before. He was mildly surprised to know it wasn't green, or yellow like many Insectoids. It was a deep maroon, much like his own blood.
Lequell's head was cleaner than the rest of him. Probably because his head had been separated from his body. It was sitting face up a few paces from his bloodied corpse. His lifeless eyes stared up at the sun. They'd gone a dull gray color, instead of their usual black.
Zruu had seen more dead bodies than he could ever recount. Seeing one more now meant about as much as any of the others had. He felt nothing for the Vakk he'd barely known. If anything, he considered him weak for dying so easily. And so soon before their mission was complete.
Zruu raised his boot and punted Lequell's head through the air. It shot up at an arc, before disappearing in the high grass. He turned to the other Bandits. *"What the fuck do we do now? How the fuck did we lose the fucking Pyramid?"
He kicked Lequell's body hard enough to splatter some of the blood, painting several blade of grass burgundy.
"Ziilkdamnit! Now I've got blood on my boot." He turned his foot sideways and attempted to rub the drying fluids off onto the dirt. This mostly worked, but there remained a streak of the stuff he couldn't quite wipe away. "Ziilkdamnit," he cursed again.
"Was it the Pirates?" Coldcradle asked.
Zruu glanced up at the sky. The Pirates had broken their formations and were now flying in a disorganized swarm. They were headed east. They didn't seem to have any interest in the three Bandits down on the ground far below them, from what Zruu could tell. "My gut says no. I think those Sky Pirates and Gyff are just as confused as we are. I have no fucking clue what just happened, but I can tell you one thing... we're gonna get Chief Xovvo's Pyramid back. I don't give a shit what it takes. If it costs all three of us our lives. We're gonna get that damned thing back."
"A Pharoah had to be involved," Coldcradle said. "They're the only ones who could pull something like this off."
Fann nodded his agreement. "That bitch Camaria, most likely."
"I don't give a shit," Zruu said. "Pharoah or no Pharoah. We're getting it back." He locked eyes with Coldcradle, then with Fann, before looking off toward the horizon. "But first... we're gonna keep heading where we were headed. We're gonna deal with the she-ant before we do anything else. We don't have the Pyramid now, but we won't need it. I'll kill her with my bare hands if I have to."
Coldcradle said, "Then let's get to it. Let's hunt that bitch down. For the Chief."
Zruu and Fann voiced a howl of agreement. "For Chief Xovvo!" they said together.
The three members of the Tri-Hook took to wing. The only thing on any of their minds was murder...
•6
"What's the matter?" Flower-Seed asked. His tone was that of someone trying to hide the fact they were in a great deal of pain.
Councilor Lemma studied his face closely. The two of them were flying side-by-side over the city, with Quijj just up ahead. The elderly tavern keeper insisted on taking the lead, it seemed. It was just as well. Lemma had wanted to stay back with Flower-Seed to make sure he was alright. He definitely wasn't alright, but wouldn't admit it.
As much as Flower-Seed's condition concerned her, it was the scene down below--down on the city streets--that concerned Lemma the most. She turned back to the group of younglings she'd spotted.
She and Flower-Seed had a bird's eye view of what remained of Elgganath Parkway in the eastern part of Locust Spire. Just as they'd flown past one of the only large structures that hadn't been reduced to rubble here, they'd caught Lemma's eye almost immediately. There were close to three dozen in all. Younglings no older than adolescents. Some of them were sitting on the sidewalk with their heads between their legs. Some of them were embracing one another. Many of them were simply standing in place, looking up and down the street as if they had no idea what to do, or where to go. Several of them were huddled together, speaking in frightened voices.
Lemma slowed her acceleration to a crawl. Seeing this, after a moment, Flower-Seed did the same.
Quijj craned his neck to look back at them. "You alright?"
Lemma nodded. "Yes." And after a moment's contemplation, she added: "You can go on without me."
Flower-Seed opened his mouth to say something. Then he saw the younglings. He looked from the group below, then back to Lemma. Understanding dawned on his face. He slowly nodded. "Go on without me, as well." After taking a brief moment just as Lemma had, he said (somewhat hesitantly), "If you can manage on your own, that is."
Quijj nodded in response, giving them a grunt of aye, before flying onward.
Lemma and Flower-Seed hung there in the air, and watched Quijj disappear behind a row of vine-covered warehouses. Lemma sighed, turning to Flower-Seed. "The city just suffered a horrible tragedy. They need their leader."
Flower-Seed nodded. "I know."
"Especially the youth. They look completely lost. Without hope. The fire and the explosions are over, but now they need guidance to know how to pick up the pieces."
"I know," Flower-Seed repeated, punctuating the words with a gentle smile. "Well... what do ya say we get down there? See how many we can reunite with their parents."
Lemma returned his smile. "I just hope most of their parents are still alive."
Flower-Seed looked away. "Yeah." He shook his head. "Gods. What a harsh world this is."
"It is. But as long as I'm around, there will always be hope left. That's what they need to see. The Jikk of this city. They need to see the light of hope still shines upon them. Even in darkness. There is always hope."
•7•
Doka could sense the terrible power radiating off the figures just ahead. There was a Fragment User in their midst. As well as multiple masters of the Old Arts and Dark Channels.
And there was something even greater. He could feel it, like a vibration inside his brain.
As he drew closer, he saw the Jikk he was supposed to see, and the mothmen he wasn't. One of the mercs was utilizing a Cyphering technique to hide their presence. Doka could only see them through his connection with the Realms beyond life, beyond mortals.
Doka flew faster, closer, closing in on them.
One of the Jikk--a she-Jikk High Knight named Von, Doka saw--held up her arms and began waving at him. She was trying to flag him down. Doka had no doubt, this was what she'd been instructed to do. The Jikk weren't apart of this. They were only pawns, used by the mercs.
Doka dove down, came to a landing.
In his new form, he could speak to more than just the soft shell. He called out to the High Knight. "It's alright. I know you've done all you could."
The High Knight and the other Jikk stared back at him, stonefaced. Doka could see beneath their expressionless faces; could see through them. He could feel their desperation, their shame.
That was when the mercs sprang their trap...
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Wings worked against wind, as the squad continued their aerial sprint.
In spite of their best efforts, they couldn't close the distance soon enough. They were still much too far from the city to gain any new insight into the attack--too far away to do anything, too far away to even know much of anything.
High Knight Von and Sergeant One-Wing led their respective squads onward, roaring through the air over the high grasses. Locust Spire was just on the edge of the horizon now. Within view, but still out of reach. Already, Von could feel that something was very wrong in the great Jikkellian settlement. Nagging dread in the pit of her gut gnawed at her as she drove forward. For a while, the wind carried with it the smell of smoke and ash. However, now those scents had dissipated, almost as if the wind had suddenly changed directions. The orange-red glow of flame had settled over the city like a corona, when the grand Spire of jade jutting up from the city's skyline first became visible. Now, the glow had softened to the point it may have no longer have been there at all.
And the Spire itself--the city's namesake, and jewel of Jikkellia--did not seem quite right. Von couldn't quite say why, but it seemed somehow... different; wrong; changed in some way.
What was going on? Was this what Lord Vellnoth was trying to tell them?
Come to think of it... what HAD Lord Vellnoth told them? Aside from ordering them to release the Amphibian and the suspected terrorist, there really hadn't been much information relayed, had there?
Von found it strange. She could hardly recall what the Gardener In Green had said, at all. She would've assumed something as life altering as speaking directly to the God of all Jikk would have left a greater impression on her. She'd assumed it would have inspired her mind, rekindled her soul. As it was, the event had hardly done more than leave her confused, feeling like a lost hatchling who'd just been introduced to something they didn't understand; some concept or experience they needed an adult to explain.
Her mind quickly turned from looking inward, to gazing out at the grasses stretched before her. Just ahead. There was movement.
Von glanced over to her right at One-Wing, but the frown on his face told her he'd already noticed the same thing she had.
High Knight Von drew her sword. Like clockwork, every Knight and Spire Watch behind her followed suit, drawing their own weapons. One-Wing was the last to unsheath his blade. He'd only just readied it when the sound and heatwave of an explosion broke out behind them.
The entire rear flank was taken out in a single strike. The remains of those soldiers caught in the blast were sent hurtling to the ground like small blackened meteorites.
"Post-Six!" Von called out.
The soldiers followed their orders--and their training--falling into a new, defensive position. Or, at least, they began to take up the Post-Six formation. They were interrupted partway through by a second explosion.
Where the fuck were the blasts coming from?
More body parts and scorched remains rained down to the landscape below.
"Ground!" One-Wing bellowed.
What was left of their rapidly thinning squad dropped altitude, coming down for a quick landing.
Von frantically scanned the surrounding grasses as she came to a landing with the others. She saw no one. There was no cover, and it was midday. There wasn't anywhere to hide, yet she still didn't see a single soul.
"No one move," said a commanding voice behind her.
Every head swiveled around, to face the assailant.
Von saw one, then three, then six seperate figures appear behind the soldiers. From the corners of her vision, more appeared. She could hear others, by the sound of their bootfalls and the clanking of their armor.
High Knight Von and her entire squad were completely surrounded.
The figures were Nerthran; mothmen of the Jagged Fields Kingdom. A lot of them. Von counted at least fifty, if not more. Ordinarily, Nerthran wore silver robes of fine silk, as part of their customs. These particular mothmen were wearing their robes, but had opted to don silver chainmail overtop the garments--or, in some cases, even steel plate. They wielded exotic-looking weapons. Crecent-shaped waraxes and ornate katanas; elaborately crafted claymores and thrusting blades shaped like wedges of pie. Even their more familiar arms--their longswords, daggers, and polearms--had been crafted in a way that would have intrigued even the greatest Jikkelian blacksmiths. Yet, of all the weaponry these mothfolk wielded, none stood out more than that of the one who'd stepped forward to call out.
The mothman called out a second time, shouting a single word: "Hold!" He held his unique weapon in both hands, gripping it at the center. It was a cold black color; as cold and black as a Lich's heart. It was as long as the mothman was tall. He held it at a tilt so that it crossed his body diagonally, like a large dark strike-through on a warning symbol. It was shaped like a staff. At both ends, it split off into two prongs like a serpent's tongue.
Now, Von began taking notice of the emblems on the breastplates, gauntlets, and bracers of the foes before her. They showed a symbol; a streak of silver running through a pair of moth wings, crossed by two blades. Her mind searched for meaning. After a moment, recognition finally set in.
Stonewing Pillar Mercenary Band.
They were ruthless criminals and sellswords, well-known in Jagged Fields but infamous even in Jikkellia. She'd never dealt with them personally, but she'd learned about them while undergoing the political and diplomacy training required to reach the rank of High Knight.
Bad news. That's what they were.
Von raised her sword. "You're interfering in official business!" This hardly encapsulated the scope of their crime (especially after launching a direct attack) but it was all she could think to say in the moment.
The mothman smiled. "Actually, you're all about to assist us with our business."
One-Wing scoffed at this. "What makes you think we'd do that?"
His smile broadened. "What makes you think you have a choice?"
•2•
They had a single goal now: reach the statue before the worms reached the surface...
Quijj took the lead. Councilor Lemma informed him she had wings of her own and therefore did not require his assistance when it came to flight (and also that if he continued treating her like a stack of lumber he needed to carry around, she was going to smack him silly). Quijj did not argue. The Councilor flew right behind him. And right behind her--bringing up the rear--was Flower-Seed. It was not a position he was particularly fond of--what with the worms on the loose and all--but he certainly wouldn't have wanted to be in front, either. Last wasn't as good as being in the middle, but of course, Flower-Seed was a gentlemen and Lemma was one of the city's honored leaders. So, back of the pack it was for ol' Flower-Seed.
They rushed up through the narrow hole in the cavern tunnel with a furious speed that would have made even a hive of Hellflies envious. The tunnel ended at an old well that had fallen into disrepair. In actuality, it had never really been used as a well to begin with. The 'fallen into disrepair' part--as the Councilor had explained--was just a story the Jikk of the city had always told one another. It was the sort of story that had been told so many times, for so many years, no one really questioned it or gave it a second thought. The truth of it was the Council of Three in Days Now Gone had decided to build a false well to cover the hidden entrance to the old city. It was sort of an emergency entrance, should one ever be needed.
If only those Jikk of the distant past had known their secret tunnel would not be used as an emergency entrance, but rather, an emergency exit. If they had known this, then perhaps Quijj, Flower-Seed, and Councilor Lemma could have avoided the problem they currently faced; *the fact that those same long-dead Jikk of yesteryear had elected to board up the false well so as to keep any hapless citizens or curious younglings from inadvertently stumbling upon their secret drop shaft to the old ruins.
Quijj had grunted something about this not being an issue when the Councilor broke the news of this "minor problem." Flower-Seed was fairly certain the old tavern keeper would have grunted the same grunt of reassurance, no matter what the Councilor had said. Quijj was painting himself more and more as the kind of Jikk who would take a sledgehammer to a door, if his key didn't fit. Grunting all the while.
When they reached the end of the shaft, Flower-Seed already knew what would come next. His hunch was confirmed when Quijj cautioned them to cover their ears. Flower-Seed now saw what would follow quite clearly in his mind. And how had he not seen this coming? Of course the crazy old bastard was going to blast his way out. Because of course he was.
Quijj was a valuable ally to have at a time like this, but once the smoke cleared, Flower-Seed hoped he would never again find himself in any dire situations with Quijj again, anytime soon.
Or ever again, if it could be helped.
When this was all over, if he made it out alive, Flower-Seed decided he was going to curl up on a nice warm cot by a hearth someplace, and sleep for about four straight Sun Cycles. Maybe even five. Six, while he was at it. Why not? He would certainly have earned it, if he managed to survive all of this chaos and bedlam.
There was a brilliant flash of white and orange; a roaring, echoing BOOOOM which ripped through the entire shaft. A loud crashing, splintering sound rose from above. Heat and a gust of hot air hit Flower-Seed in the face.
Then, they were shooting straight up into the air, no longer inside the shaft. The midday sky was above them again, fresh air in their lungs and the city stretched out all around them. The three of them came to a landing on a patch of scraggly blue kaynarr grass. The scattered stone and wood shrapnel that had once pretended to be a well lay scattered about, near the place where they'd made their exit. All that was left of the false well was a dark round hole and a broken ring of stone no higher than Flower-Seed's shin. There were black iron gates closing in a section of scrubby looking Debbler trees. The backs of several houses ran along the gate on one side. On the opposite side, a large warehouse loomed over the trio of . They were standing in a fenced-in raindrop shaped lot that had clearly been set aside for the sole purpose of secluding the well. The droplet shape of the lot came to a soft point between two houses, where a narrow gap had been left. The three of them wordlessly made for the opening.
The Councilor took the lead now. As soon as they'd made it to the other side of the row of houses, she took to wing. Quijj and Flower-Seed did likewise. They flew over the streets and walkways of a rundown residential neighborhood. Flower-Seed saw only a small handful of citizens. They were huddled together in small groups, hugging one another or saying silent prayers.
"What did I miss?" Councilor Lemma asked, looking around. "Is the attack over? And... where in Vellnoth's Name did all these vines come from?"
Flower-Seed tried to answer, but couldn't. He wasn't sure he had an answer. His vision had told him of the threats below ground, but hadn't filled him in on everything above the surface. What he and Quijj had witnessed with the Drill Flies seemed too miraculous to retell.
Quijj grunted. "A savior."
"A savior?" Lemma asked uncertainly.
Flower-Seed nodded. They were flying side by side now. "Yeah." He smiled to himself. It felt good to smile. Even after all the devastation and death, the fact that there had been a savior...
He didn't have the words for it.
They cut across the city, reaching the Cobbler's District in what felt like seconds.
"There's the statue," said the Councilor.
They landed just before the carved jade depiction of the Jikk hero of legend: Kylo the Great. This statue was identical to the one that had been in Lo Syy Tett, in Proeliator Plaza. There was another in front of the City of the Wandering Moon, as well as a fourth statue in Irogon Nath. Or, at least that's what Flower-Seed had been taught as a youngling at the Learning Hall. Kylo the Great had been one of the founders of Lo Syy Tett and Locust Spire. A true hero of all Jikkellia. Or so it was said.
Councilor Lemma hurried over to the back of the statue. There was a crevice just large enough for her hand. She stuck the Y of her fingers into the opening. Her face took on a look of deep concentration. After a moment, a panel was revealed in the base of the statue. There were gears, dials, and a single lever.
"Who would have thought," Flower-Seed mused.
The Councilor got to work. She began turning the gears and dials. Her hands became a blur for a moment as she input the secret sequence. Finally, she pulled the lever. Beneath the statue, there was a sound like gravel spilling from a wheelbarrow. Then, there was only silence for a moment.
Slowly, the statue began to rise several inches from the ground. When it stopped, the panel snapped back into place.
"It's done," said the Counilor, breathing a sigh of relief. "I just hope we weren't too late." There was a sadness in her eyes however.
Flower-Seed offered a sympathetic expression. "A bit overwhelming isn't it?"
Lemma waved a dismissive hand. "No, it's just... the Advisors. I just hope they made it out."
"There was no choice," Quijj said firmly.
"Yeah," Flower-Seed agreed. "We had to seal it off. Otherwise, who knows how fast those things might've spread."
The Councilor nodded. "I know. I know. Still... E'Shesh. She tried to protect me. When they were going to place me under arrest. She stood in front of the knights."
They all fell silent.
After a few moments, the three of them began to glance around at one another. A knowing look crept across all three of their faces. In unison, Councilor Lemma, Quijj, and Flower-Seed all whispered: "The Jailer."
Quijj nodded, giving one of his usual grunts. "Uhh huh." His expression had darkened. The look in his eyes was downright frigid.
Flower-Seed shook his head. "I don't know why, but ever since we were down in the ruins... it's been as if a curtain was lifted, from inside my mind."
Councilor Lemma nodded. "I know exactly what you mean. A part of me was fully aware of The Jailer and his deeds in Lo Syy Tett. Yet... it was almost like... I wouldn't quite call it a trance--I wasn't under any spell, or hypnosis, at least not as best as I can tell--but rather... it's as if I held a kind of complacency toward everything. I can see now how truly horrendous that Jikk is. Him, and what he's been doing. But... he must have had some way of making all of us intentionally ignore the problem."
"Mind Mother," said Quijj. "That'd do it."
Flower-Seed eyed the tavern keeper. "Mind Mother? Are those things even real?"
"Oh, they're quite real," said Lemma. "And if that's the case, it would actually explain a lot. From what little I understand of them, those creatures secrete a psychic enzyme that lulls the minds of those around it. The longer it occupies an area--so long as it's well-fed and undisturbed--the wider its field of influence. The Jailer must have somehow compelled a Mind Mother to do his bidding, and influence the minds of Jikkellians in a way that would further his terrible cause."
Flower-Seed considered this. "But if we're about to realize we were being influenced now... does that mean this Mind Mother is dead?"
"Tough to say," said Quijj.
"Indeed," said Lemma.
Quijj grunted in what might have been alarm, or perhaps frustration. He was gazing up at the sky.
"What is it?" Flower-Seed asked. But he already knew. He saw it too now. "What is that?"
His mind was overtaken with yet another vision. He saw the entrance to the underground ruins, as it was being sealed off. Just before the large stone slab blocked the passageway leading down into the City Before The City, five Jikk leapt through the rapidly shrinkly gap and onto the street. Breathless, they collapsed to the stonework.
A fraction of a second later, something else followed in their wake. It did not land, nor did it collapse onto the street as the Jikk had. Instead, it shot upwards into the air. The stone slab closed what remained of the opening.
But it was already too late.
One of the Jikk lying in the street began to scream. Flower-Seed saw that Temporary Councilor E'Shesh had indeed made it out of the ruins before the entrance closed. She was lying on her back, looking up at the sky with a look of pure terror plastered across her face.
The thing that emerged from the opening ignored the Jikk, however. It continued to climb through the air, until it was high above the vine-covered rooftops and city streets below. It rose higher still, before slowing. It hung there in the sky for several seconds, before rocketing away. It was headed toward a confrontation. Flower-Seed could not quite discern the nature of this confrontation, only that it would decide the fates of a great many.
And somehow, the outsiders were involved. Specifically, the outsider who had served as Locust Spire's unexpected savior.
Flower-Seed only caught a brief glimpse of the thing in his mind's eye, but that had been enough to fill him with a deep, almost existential feeling of dread.
The worms. They had fused together to form a single being. High Knight Pyx's plate armor. The thing was using it.
A giant parasitic worm-thing in platemail. It was coming for the outsider. And there was no stopping it...
The vision broke away. Flower-Seed found himself on his knees with dark green blood dripping from his eyes and mouth. The vision had been too much for him. Whatever had altered his curse--whatever force, whether it be supernatural, or simply the blow he'd taken to the head at the front gates--it had amplified it to a magnitude Flower-Seed could not handle. The previous vision had nearly caused him to black out. This one had almost ruptured his brain. He wasn't sure how many more of these "visions" he could take. The next one might very well kill him.
He slapped his palms down on the sidewalk, gasping for air.
"Are you alright?" Councilor Lemma asked.
Flower-Seed shook his head.
"What is it?" Quijj asked with much urgency. "Vision again? Did you see a mothman?"
Flower-Seed shook his head again, then promptly coughed up a thick glob of blood onto the stonework. He tried to stand, but his legs were much too weak.
Quijj hurried over and hooked an arm around Flower-Seed, helping him up. "Easy now," he whispered.
"Worms," Flower-Seed said, almost choking on the word. "Worm man. Man made of worms. Headed for the outsider." He took a deep breath, and that seemed to help. Not much, but a little.
Quijj eased him into a sitting position, before releasing him. He drew his strange weapon, examining it a moment before turning to the Councilor. "Can you tend to him?"
"Where do you think you're going?" she said in a tone of reproach. Her hands were on her hips. She gave the tavern keeper a look that reminded Flower-Seed of the way his mother used to look at him as a youngling, on evenings when he'd been out causing trouble with his friends.
"To stop it," Quijj said matter-of-factly. He turned back toward the sky, using his weapon to point at a dark, fast moving dot in the distance. The worm-thing. It was traveling at a tremendous rate of speed, trailing away from the city.
"Alright. In that case, I'm coming with you," said the Councilor.
Quijj grunted in disapproval.
"Don't give me that. I'm the High Councilor, afterall. I have a sworn duty."
"I'm coming too," Flower-Seed said, struggling to his feet.
"You can't," Lemma said. "You aren't well."
"I'll be fine. C'mon. Besides... you can't just leave me here on the sidewalk by myself."
Quijj eyed them both a moment, before slowly nodding. "Fine. Just keep behind me."
"Don't tell me what to do," said the Councilor smiling warmly. "I swore to serve and protect my city. That includes every last citizen."
"Humff," Quijj grunted.
Lemma regarded Flower-Seed with some concern. "Can you fly?"
"I think so."
"Alright. Then let's be off."
Quijj nodded, grunting again for what may have been the hundredth time.
•3•
The changes still hadn't fully set in.
He scarsely resembled his former self. His body was similar to that of a Jikk's, but his wings were like those of a giant moth. And his body, his wings, his entire form was entirely comprised of vines and sunflowers.
Doka was still getting accustomed to his new form. He was still getting accustomed to a lot of things. Ever since the outsiders first arrived in Lo Syy Tett, Doka had gone through a transformation even his new body could not fully represent. Which was saying quite a lot, considering his new form was the direct physical manifestation of the personal and metaphysical journey he'd undergone. He had died for Gods' sake!
He had died.
He'd died, but there had been no White Staircase. He hadn't seen the face of his creator. He'd seen only darkness, before his soul took up residency inside the Moon Moth.
So much of what he'd believed his entire life had been a lie. It made him wonder what else might also be a lie. What even was the truth? Did such a thing exist?
He had DIED!
His mind kept shouting the words over and over like a chant, as if reminding him of this fact might spark some greater intuition, or reveal some hidden meaning. It did not. The reminder only compounded his confusion with a whole lot of noise echoing inside his own head.
He had died.
This was a fact he was still grappling with, even now. Really, it had only been his body that had died. His spirit, soul, and mind had remained. He was now in a kind of life after afterlife. It was beyond strange, in a way that caused his brain to ache if he thought about it too long.
What a journey it had been since the duel with the Frog.
Doka had been granted revelation and realization, one after the other, in a constant barrage of perspective-shifting events. He'd been shaken to his very core--changed in the most fundamental sense of the word. He'd become someone completely different. Yet, at the heart of it all, he was still him. He was still Doka. Just a far more enlightened, less xenophobic and ignorant Doka.
However, this enlightenment also allowed him to see the problem; a problem that had not yet come up, but would have to be addressed sooner, rather than later.
The problem was, he'd been granted revelation and realization, without any real reflection. He'd been transformed, but hadn't yet had even a single spare moment to contemplate the meaning of it all. He was experiencing the effects, without fully understanding the causes. He'd been changed without stopping to consider the ramifications of so much change, on so many fundamental levels.
These things troubled him, but they were Deep Troubles of the Long Term. There were other, more urgent troubles to deal with in the meantime.
Doka and the soft shell soared over the open grasses; a flower-moth-grasshopper-hybrid and a curtain of shimmering blue. Doka looked down at the sheet of water below him. David was stretched out like one great flat square, casting no shadow as he passed over the land.
"What's wrong, bud?" asked the soft shell, taking notice of Doka's gaze. "You alright?"
Doka stilled his thoughts. "I want you to listen to me, Soft Shell. There's going to be trouble up ahead."
"Uh, yeah. I know. That's why we're coming to the rescue, remember? Don't tell me you're getting nervous?"
It was still a bit strange to hear the human's familiar voice coming from the shimmering polygon of liquid. Of course, the two of them had encountered far stranger things than this, on their journey. Particularly in the Sands. Doka had an idea that if not for some doing on the part of the cloaked figure, both his and the soft shell's minds would have been permanently shattered by the experience.
Doka said, "I don't mean once we reach the woods. There is an ambush waiting for us, well before then. A group of mercenaries."
The human was silent a moment. "I can't detect anything like that. Are you sure?"
"Aye. I'm certain of it. They're concealing themselves from your Energies ability to discern their plot. I am able to see it because of my connection with things that lie beyond the mortal world."
"Alright, well... we'll just have to take them out quickly, so we can hurry up and save Artie and the others."
"No," Doka said firmly. "I want you to continue on without me."
"What? But why? It doesn't make any sense to split up. We'll be able to deal with them faster if there are two of us."
Doka shook his head. "You don't understand. They are the ones who attacked Locust Spire. This is personal for me. You can't be stalled in reaching the woods. Your mission is far too important."
"Is that their big plan? To keep me fighting them, just to delay us getting to Artie?"
"That isn't their intention, but that will be the result of their actions, regardless. They have another reason for wanting to defeat you and I."
"Okay? Well don't leave me hangin. What's the reason?"
"Retaliation for stopping their attack on Locust Spire, for one. These mercenaries will try and destroy anyone who stands in the way of their goals. They wish to sew chaos and confusion. Anarchy. They don't want us undoing any more of what they have done, or what they plan to do. I can sense a dark plot. They're working with agents of Pharoah Dowlmad."
"I don't know that name, but I get some pretty fuckin' evil views from it, for sure."
"That would be an accurate assessment. The leader of these mercenaries wishes to leave the valley. There is something beyond the God Shelves he seeks, which will grant him unyielding power. Even I cannot discern his full intentions, but these are the things I have been able to determine."
"I see. Well, I still don't understand why you have to try and solo these guys. Let me help you knock 'em around. We can--"
"No," Doka said firmly. "This really is something I must do on my own. Please try and respect my wishes."
Doka could almost feel the human's mind turning, formulating further protest. Then, it was as if the soft shell finally came to a conclusion. Perhaps, he finally understood that this meant something to Doka--that this was important; a meaningful step on the path to redemption.
At last, the soft shell relented. "Alright, alright. Fine. But if you get into any trouble... if it's more than you can handle, or you--"
"I know how I call out to you," Doka said.
The human sighed. "Okay. Then I guess we'll split up. Um... where exactly is this ambush happening, anyhow?"
"Start traveling northward. Your mind will tell you when to correct your course again. That won't delay your arrival any. You would have had to travel North for a ways,, once you reached the woods. You're just doing it a bit sooner than necessary."
"Alright. Will do. Just... be careful, Doka. Okay? Seriously."
"And you as well, soft shell," Doka said. "Gods willing, I will see you again soon."
•4•
Deskant was well-versed in the power names held in the In-Between. This was why he'd worked so hard to become a Named Enforcer of the Stonewing Pillar Mercenary Band, on top of his other titles and stations. Most of the mercs in evidence were only foot soldiers, or Prospects. Leader Rave hadn't wanted all of his best warriors away from Home Base, afterall. The Stonewings were far greater in number and power than they'd ever let on to nonmembers. In their line of work, it was always best to hide your hand. You didn't want your rivals (or even your allies) knowing your full capabilities. Which was exactly why Deskant was joined on his current mission by the lower ranking members and memers-in-training, mostly. However, this was not the case with all of the mercs here in the open grasses. There was Angus the Arsonist, Vizloth the Philter, Gondin the Foul Ozmon the Worm-Wielder, Ujak the Unhinged.
Then, of course, there was him. Deskant the Demolisher. This was a moniker he had earned after many years climbing and clawing his way up the ranks of the band. He now filled the role of Chief Communicator, as well as being Rave's Right Hand when they were away from Home Base (even if that title actually belonged to Xider, whenever Xider wasn't around--like now--Deskant was the one who stepped up).
Rave had dubbed him the Demolisher because that was exactly what he did. He demolished things; people, places, anything and everything in his path.
"Just cooperate and everything will be fine," Deskant said.
The she-Jikk in the plate armor only glared at him.
"Yeah, I don't like those worms either, but they're effective." He waved his hand toward the infected Jikk soldiers. "We'll remove the parasites and we won't release anymore on your city, so long as you keep doing exactly as we say."
Ozmon the Worm-Wielder stepped forward, clutching his strange club--a dark, polished thing which which looked more like two long, slender serpents twisted around a stick than an actual club--and nodded. "All be righted, once we've finished here."
The she-Jikk said, "We shouldn't be negotiating with the likes of you."
Deskant laughed. "Good thing this isn't a negotiation. It's a hostage situation. If you hadn't noticed." His eyes scanned the row of infected Jikk. Half their number were currently inhabited by parasites. The other half were standing behind the she-Jikk and the one who'd identified himself as their Sergeant. "Now, remember... when you see the outsider, you flag him down. That's all you have to do. Leave the rest to us."
"Uh, 'Skant?" Angus said uncertainly.
"Yeah? What is it?"
"They're almost here. I can smell 'em."
Deskant smiled again. This was just too easy. "Alright. Everyone out of sight. Time to do what we do best, fellas."
There was a collective cheer from the other mercs. The lot of them moved into position.
•5•
Zruu--Tri-Hook leader and newly appointed Chief of the Clawhook Bandits in the wake of Chief Xovvo's murder--felt the entire world shift with such remarkable suddenness, that for a moment, he was certain he'd lost his grip on reality. One moment, Zruu had been seated in the bridge of the Black Pyramid beside his fellow Tri-Hook members, Coldcradle and Fann. The next thing the new Bandit Chief knew, he was plopping down hard on his ass in a field of knee-high emerald green grass. He'd been watching a formation of Gliders appear through the viewing window of the bridge. Sky Pirates, he had no doubt. He'd been mentally scrambling for a course of action. His mind had of course first turned to the Pyramid's weapons system. However, just as he was about to suggest this to Coldcradle and Fann, all of a sudden, it was as if his chair had been pulled out from under him--and everything else around him ripped away, right along with it.
"What the FUCK?" Coldcradle bellowed.
Zruu saw his two companions in the grass, just a few short meters away. Fann was there beside Coldcradle, looking furious but saying nothing.
Zruu's eyes burned with rage. "My thoughts exactly." He looked up to the sky. The Pirates. They were up there in the Glider Pods. There were also small Gyff craft as well. Collectively, there were four dozen of the bastards. The Sky Pirates made up three seperate V patterns, while the Walking Stick Men flew in a straight row side-by-side. Together, they made what looked like three arrows and line segment. And there, in the patch of sky between them, was the place where the Black Pyramid had been. The place where Zruu himself had been, on the bridge of the Pyramid.
But the Pyramid was gone. And now, Zruu was down here on the ground.
It made no fucking sense.
"Uh, Chief?" Coldcradle said warily.
Zruu took his eyes away from the sky and leveled his gaze at the other Bandit. "What?"
Coldcradle pointed at something lying in the grass a few feet to his left.
Zruu cocked his head to one side. Then, he was back up on his feet in an instant. "Is that who I think it is?"
But he already knew it was. There, motionless on the ground, was the Vakk Onillcoth had sent as honorary reinforcement. Lequell's body was covered in so much blood, it barely looked like a body. Really, it looked more like a slab of meat glazed in strawberry jam. Zruu had never seen tickman blood before. He was mildly surprised to know it wasn't green, or yellow like many Insectoids. It was a deep maroon, much like his own blood.
Lequell's head was cleaner than the rest of him. Probably because his head had been separated from his body. It was sitting face up a few paces from his bloodied corpse. His lifeless eyes stared up at the sun. They'd gone a dull gray color, instead of their usual black.
Zruu had seen more dead bodies than he could ever recount. Seeing one more now meant about as much as any of the others had. He felt nothing for the Vakk he'd barely known. If anything, he considered him weak for dying so easily. And so soon before their mission was complete.
Zruu raised his boot and punted Lequell's head through the air. It shot up at an arc, before disappearing in the high grass. He turned to the other Bandits. *"What the fuck do we do now? How the fuck did we lose the fucking Pyramid?"
He kicked Lequell's body hard enough to splatter some of the blood, painting several blade of grass burgundy.
"Ziilkdamnit! Now I've got blood on my boot." He turned his foot sideways and attempted to rub the drying fluids off onto the dirt. This mostly worked, but there remained a streak of the stuff he couldn't quite wipe away. "Ziilkdamnit," he cursed again.
"Was it the Pirates?" Coldcradle asked.
Zruu glanced up at the sky. The Pirates had broken their formations and were now flying in a disorganized swarm. They were headed east. They didn't seem to have any interest in the three Bandits down on the ground far below them, from what Zruu could tell. "My gut says no. I think those Sky Pirates and Gyff are just as confused as we are. I have no fucking clue what just happened, but I can tell you one thing... we're gonna get Chief Xovvo's Pyramid back. I don't give a shit what it takes. If it costs all three of us our lives. We're gonna get that damned thing back."
"A Pharoah had to be involved," Coldcradle said. "They're the only ones who could pull something like this off."
Fann nodded his agreement. "That bitch Camaria, most likely."
"I don't give a shit," Zruu said. "Pharoah or no Pharoah. We're getting it back." He locked eyes with Coldcradle, then with Fann, before looking off toward the horizon. "But first... we're gonna keep heading where we were headed. We're gonna deal with the she-ant before we do anything else. We don't have the Pyramid now, but we won't need it. I'll kill her with my bare hands if I have to."
Coldcradle said, "Then let's get to it. Let's hunt that bitch down. For the Chief."
Zruu and Fann voiced a howl of agreement. "For Chief Xovvo!" they said together.
The three members of the Tri-Hook took to wing. The only thing on any of their minds was murder...
•6
"What's the matter?" Flower-Seed asked. His tone was that of someone trying to hide the fact they were in a great deal of pain.
Councilor Lemma studied his face closely. The two of them were flying side-by-side over the city, with Quijj just up ahead. The elderly tavern keeper insisted on taking the lead, it seemed. It was just as well. Lemma had wanted to stay back with Flower-Seed to make sure he was alright. He definitely wasn't alright, but wouldn't admit it.
As much as Flower-Seed's condition concerned her, it was the scene down below--down on the city streets--that concerned Lemma the most. She turned back to the group of younglings she'd spotted.
She and Flower-Seed had a bird's eye view of what remained of Elgganath Parkway in the eastern part of Locust Spire. Just as they'd flown past one of the only large structures that hadn't been reduced to rubble here, they'd caught Lemma's eye almost immediately. There were close to three dozen in all. Younglings no older than adolescents. Some of them were sitting on the sidewalk with their heads between their legs. Some of them were embracing one another. Many of them were simply standing in place, looking up and down the street as if they had no idea what to do, or where to go. Several of them were huddled together, speaking in frightened voices.
Lemma slowed her acceleration to a crawl. Seeing this, after a moment, Flower-Seed did the same.
Quijj craned his neck to look back at them. "You alright?"
Lemma nodded. "Yes." And after a moment's contemplation, she added: "You can go on without me."
Flower-Seed opened his mouth to say something. Then he saw the younglings. He looked from the group below, then back to Lemma. Understanding dawned on his face. He slowly nodded. "Go on without me, as well." After taking a brief moment just as Lemma had, he said (somewhat hesitantly), "If you can manage on your own, that is."
Quijj nodded in response, giving them a grunt of aye, before flying onward.
Lemma and Flower-Seed hung there in the air, and watched Quijj disappear behind a row of vine-covered warehouses. Lemma sighed, turning to Flower-Seed. "The city just suffered a horrible tragedy. They need their leader."
Flower-Seed nodded. "I know."
"Especially the youth. They look completely lost. Without hope. The fire and the explosions are over, but now they need guidance to know how to pick up the pieces."
"I know," Flower-Seed repeated, punctuating the words with a gentle smile. "Well... what do ya say we get down there? See how many we can reunite with their parents."
Lemma returned his smile. "I just hope most of their parents are still alive."
Flower-Seed looked away. "Yeah." He shook his head. "Gods. What a harsh world this is."
"It is. But as long as I'm around, there will always be hope left. That's what they need to see. The Jikk of this city. They need to see the light of hope still shines upon them. Even in darkness. There is always hope."
•7•
Doka could sense the terrible power radiating off the figures just ahead. There was a Fragment User in their midst. As well as multiple masters of the Old Arts and Dark Channels.
And there was something even greater. He could feel it, like a vibration inside his brain.
As he drew closer, he saw the Jikk he was supposed to see, and the mothmen he wasn't. One of the mercs was utilizing a Cyphering technique to hide their presence. Doka could only see them through his connection with the Realms beyond life, beyond mortals.
Doka flew faster, closer, closing in on them.
One of the Jikk--a she-Jikk High Knight named Von, Doka saw--held up her arms and began waving at him. She was trying to flag him down. Doka had no doubt, this was what she'd been instructed to do. The Jikk weren't apart of this. They were only pawns, used by the mercs.
Doka dove down, came to a landing.
In his new form, he could speak to more than just the soft shell. He called out to the High Knight. "It's alright. I know you've done all you could."
The High Knight and the other Jikk stared back at him, stonefaced. Doka could see beneath their expressionless faces; could see through them. He could feel their desperation, their shame.
That was when the mercs sprang their trap...
2023.03.24 21:37 ArgonautTitan [PC][Clan][NA] "Othrys Sanctuary" is looking for new members! New players, returning players, casual players, you name it!
(Please read this post in its entirety before requesting an invite)
As the title implies, we're mostly looking for new and casual players! We fully understand that sometimes, life happens and you nor anyone else can really do much about it. So we have a 2 week inactivity clause and anyone is welcome back even after an inactivity kick!
As long as you are having fun, then do it. This is a game, after all!
OPTION 1: Copy the following line, and paste it in your Warframe chat text field to contact me. (Make sure the field is empty!)
/w Alexion Hello! I'm interested in joining Othrys Sanctuary! --(Other usernames from above can be used as well)
OPTION 2: If that doesn't work, send us friend requests! (Links for reference)
OPTION 3: If the above isn't working, or not to your preference, then just join the discord and discuss the situation there.
submitted by ArgonautTitan to warframeclanrecruit [link] [comments]
As the title implies, we're mostly looking for new and casual players! We fully understand that sometimes, life happens and you nor anyone else can really do much about it. So we have a 2 week inactivity clause and anyone is welcome back even after an inactivity kick!
Important Info!
- - North America Focused. (Warframe is P2P, so it's difficult to connect with clanmates over long distances due to ping and other issues.)
- - PC Clan (Warframe is not Cross-platform)
- - We are welcoming to players of all walks of life (LGBTQ+, BLM, No hatred here)
- - Awesome Clan Symbol!
- - Super Sexy Dojo! (Pics are old)
- - Rank 11 Mountain Clan (200/300)
- - New player focused!
- - Mentoring clan (We answer ALL the questions!)
- - Spoiler respect (Spoiler clause listed in discord for more info)
- - Active Discord (Optional, unless you want to partake in events)
- - We have a general access role available in discord for those who want to get a feel for the community or just hang out. (Note that Warframe chats are exclusive to Clan Members)
- - OS Discord Server! (Please read initial chats)
- - Clan Events! (Discord is required to participate)
- - 100% Research and Dry Dock!
As long as you are having fun, then do it. This is a game, after all!
Preferred Contact information:
(If you do not have discord, please comment below and we will reply ASAP!)- Clan Lead: "Alexion#0051" on Discord (Alexion in game)
- Officer: "Yrahcaz777" in game
New players!
If you don't know how to navigate the Warframe UI or Discord(App not browser), here are some examples:OPTION 1: Copy the following line, and paste it in your Warframe chat text field to contact me. (Make sure the field is empty!)
/w Alexion Hello! I'm interested in joining Othrys Sanctuary! --(Other usernames from above can be used as well)
OPTION 2: If that doesn't work, send us friend requests! (Links for reference)
- Discord: Alexion#0051 - (Or either of the officers) Click the Discord icon at the top left > Friends > "Add friend" at the top > Type my name out, including the #0051 > Done!
- Warframe: ESC > Communications > Friends > Add friend > Type my name out > Done!
OPTION 3: If the above isn't working, or not to your preference, then just join the discord and discuss the situation there.
2023.03.24 21:35 AdOpposite4883 23 [M4F] North Dakota - Looking for a GF
Hi guys! Giving this more tries! What can I say, I'm stubborn! :)
My name is Ethin. I'm 5' 11", 23 (turning 24 on the best day of the year, 4/20, and no, I'm not joking either), born in Talahasee, Florida. I moved to North Dakota in October of 2008 and have loved it ever since. I'm looking for a long-term partner: someone who loves deep conversation, lots of affection, and who likes intimate dates (and lots of them). I'm blind; I was born with Retinopathy of Prematurity, or ROP, which means my retina was disconnected at birth. I can only see light out of my right eye as a result. One question I often get is how I can text, or post on here, and the simple answer is that I use a screen reader, which is a computer program that tells me what I'm doing. Both my phone and my computer have one.
Some of my interests, in no particular order, include reading books and novels, programming computers, playing computer games, and hanging out with friends. I'm a huge harry potter fan (and I'm into Star Trek and Star Wars), so I love reading fanfiction within any of those universes, or, even better, crossovers between at least two of them. I love listening to music and dancing; some of my favorite artists include Three Days Grace, Weird Al, Afroman, Axel Johansson, Da Vinci's Notebook, and a lot more (I have a huge music library). I am an honest, kind, and caring person; I'll be open with you about anything and everything as long as you respect me and don't judge me for my past. I also love to debate, as well, because I love intellectual stimulation.
About you: you should be able to hold a conversation. I would also appreciate an introduction that isn't dry, and you shouldn't be the type of person who just sends monosyllabic or one-word responses. Don't hesitate to ask me questions about anything; I won't mind, and you needn't fear offending me. So come on in and tell me about you! Let's talk and see what happens! :)
Here are a couple pics of me:
submitted by AdOpposite4883 to ForeverAloneDating [link] [comments]
My name is Ethin. I'm 5' 11", 23 (turning 24 on the best day of the year, 4/20, and no, I'm not joking either), born in Talahasee, Florida. I moved to North Dakota in October of 2008 and have loved it ever since. I'm looking for a long-term partner: someone who loves deep conversation, lots of affection, and who likes intimate dates (and lots of them). I'm blind; I was born with Retinopathy of Prematurity, or ROP, which means my retina was disconnected at birth. I can only see light out of my right eye as a result. One question I often get is how I can text, or post on here, and the simple answer is that I use a screen reader, which is a computer program that tells me what I'm doing. Both my phone and my computer have one.
Some of my interests, in no particular order, include reading books and novels, programming computers, playing computer games, and hanging out with friends. I'm a huge harry potter fan (and I'm into Star Trek and Star Wars), so I love reading fanfiction within any of those universes, or, even better, crossovers between at least two of them. I love listening to music and dancing; some of my favorite artists include Three Days Grace, Weird Al, Afroman, Axel Johansson, Da Vinci's Notebook, and a lot more (I have a huge music library). I am an honest, kind, and caring person; I'll be open with you about anything and everything as long as you respect me and don't judge me for my past. I also love to debate, as well, because I love intellectual stimulation.
About you: you should be able to hold a conversation. I would also appreciate an introduction that isn't dry, and you shouldn't be the type of person who just sends monosyllabic or one-word responses. Don't hesitate to ask me questions about anything; I won't mind, and you needn't fear offending me. So come on in and tell me about you! Let's talk and see what happens! :)
Here are a couple pics of me:
- Formal attire: https://imgur.com/xX1gIm3
- Casual dress (I tried to take this properly but I don't get much feedback from my camera app): https://imgur.com/W9qPmVd
2023.03.24 21:12 Ok_Spread4477 [Bulk] Lubed switches, Lubed TX Stabs, Gateron CJ, Gateron Box Black, Epsilon, Durock Pom Piano, NK Cream, Cherry MX Hyperglide Black, Durock Koala, Durock L5 Linear, Durock L7 Linear, Gateron Milky Yellow, Panghu Giant V5, Mauve and Lilac, Durock Dark Amber T1, Shogoki tactile switches
Timestamps
Hi, this is Kevin from Kevin W Studio Lube Service. I started my lube and film services in the second half of 2021 as a relatively small operation but have invested heavily in it after receiving so much positive feedback from the mechmarket community members. Thank you very much to everyone who has purchased from me; I am very grateful for your trust!
In addition to lubes, films, brushes, etc., I have invested in an ultrasonic cleaner for deep cleaning switches that come from the factory pre-lubed. The end result is a much more consistent sound and press feel. I carry a large variety of lubed and filmed switches in stock; please check out the descriptions for each switch to see what lube+film was used and whether or not the ultrasonic cleaner was used.
All orders will be shipped in ziplock bags inside a box. SHIPPING IS CONUS ONLY. I am unfortunately not set up to fulfill international orders yet; apologies for the inconvenience.
Switches, Lubes and tools
I have received questions regarding my experience, so I would like to share that and a few of my philosophies when it comes to lubing and filming switches:
I have lubed and filmed over 35,000 switches for other people since the middle of 2021.
** Please PM me with the quantity of switches and your PayPal email, and I will send the invoice.
** The price list below includes PayPal fees and shipping.
Linear switch
Tactile Switch
Stabilizers
Local pick up available, zip code: 95035.
submitted by Ok_Spread4477 to mechmarket [link] [comments]
Hi, this is Kevin from Kevin W Studio Lube Service. I started my lube and film services in the second half of 2021 as a relatively small operation but have invested heavily in it after receiving so much positive feedback from the mechmarket community members. Thank you very much to everyone who has purchased from me; I am very grateful for your trust!
In addition to lubes, films, brushes, etc., I have invested in an ultrasonic cleaner for deep cleaning switches that come from the factory pre-lubed. The end result is a much more consistent sound and press feel. I carry a large variety of lubed and filmed switches in stock; please check out the descriptions for each switch to see what lube+film was used and whether or not the ultrasonic cleaner was used.
All orders will be shipped in ziplock bags inside a box. SHIPPING IS CONUS ONLY. I am unfortunately not set up to fulfill international orders yet; apologies for the inconvenience.
Switches, Lubes and tools
I have received questions regarding my experience, so I would like to share that and a few of my philosophies when it comes to lubing and filming switches:
I have lubed and filmed over 35,000 switches for other people since the middle of 2021.
- There is no single lube method that works perfectly for all switches because many switches have minute differences, and they all have their own sound signatures and press feels.
- Preserving the switch's sound signature and press feel should be a high priority. 205g0 is great for linear switches, but it is very easy to overlube with it, which produces a homogenous sound signature and press feel, making linear switches sound and feel similar, e.g., Lavenders/Banana Splits/etc.
- Deep cleaning is necessary to produce a consistent sound and press feel for some switches because factory pre-lube can be inconsistently applied.
- No single film works for every switch because housing tightness varies greatly. When I receive a new switch that I have no experience with, I test every combination of lube and film I can to find what works best for that particular switch.
- Film is not always a good thing; if the top housing is pretty tight, it can turn the linear switch to tactile or tactile to linear, significantly impacting the feel, so I only film the switches when necessary.
- Why mix 205g0 and 105 for linear switches? In order to eliminate switch noise and preserve the switch's original sound signature and press feel, I found this mixture to be optimal after extensive testing.
** Please PM me with the quantity of switches and your PayPal email, and I will send the invoice.
** The price list below includes PayPal fees and shipping.
Linear switch
| Switch | Description | Quantity (Pack) | Price (90 switches per pack if not specified otherwise) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lubed Prevail Epsilon | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring, housing is pretty tight, no film is required. | 90 * 18 | $115 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Durock POM Piano Linear | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring, housing is pretty tight, no film is required. | 90 * 22 | $115 per pack shipped |
| L + F Gateron Ink Black V2 | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Filmed with 0.125mm Kebo Switch Films. | 90 * 11 | $115 per pack shipped |
| L + F Gateron Box Ink v2 Black | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Filmed with 0.15mm Durock Switch Films. | 90 * 4 | $120 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Panghu Giant V5 Switches | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. No film. | 90 * 2 | $110 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Cherry MX Hyperglide Black | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Housing pretty tight, no film is required. | 90 * 9 | $100 per pack shipped |
| Lubed NK Cream | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. No film is required. | 90 * 9 | $110 per pack shipped |
| L + F Durock L5 Linear Teal (Smoke) 67g | Ultrasonic cleaned on top house and stem, air dry for 48 hours, Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Filmed with 0.15mm durock Switch Films. | 90 * 3 | $95 Per pack shipped |
| L + F Durock L7 Linear Black (Smoke) 62g | Ultrasonic cleaned on top house and stem, air dry for 48 hours, Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Filmed with 0.15mm durock Switch Films. | 90 * 1 | $95 Per pack shipped |
| Lubed Gateron Milky Yellow | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. No film. | 90 * 16 | $70 Per pack shipped |
| L + F Gateron Pink | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Filmed with 0.15mm Durock Switch Films. | 90 * 1 | $105 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Mauve Linear | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Housing pretty tight, no film is required. | 90 * 2 | $105 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Lilac Linear | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Housing pretty tight, no film is required. | 110 * 1 | $130 for 110 switches shipped |
| Lubed NK Silk Yellow Linear | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Housing pretty tight, no film is required. | 90 * 1 | $90 per pack shipped |
| Lubed TTC Red Linear switch | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Housing pretty tight, no film is required. | 90 * 1 | $70 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Owlab neon switch | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring, housing is pretty tight, no film is required. | 30 * 1 | $40 shipped for 30 switches |
| L + F Gateron CJ | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. Filmed with 0.15mm Durock Switch Films. | 60 * 1 | $80 shipped for 60 switches. |
| Lubed C³EQUALZ Banana Split | Lubed with mixed Krytox 205g0 and 105 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring, housing is pretty tight, no film is required. | 30 * 1 | $40 for 30 switches shipped |
| Switch | Description | Quantity (Pack) | Price (90 switches per pack if not specified otherwise) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lubed Durock Koala Tactile 67g | Lubed with tribosys 3203 on bottom housing and stem, mixed 205g0 and 105 on spring. No film is required. | 90 * 2 | $100 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Durock Dark Amber T1 Tactile | Lubed with tribosys 3203 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. No film is required. | 90 * 3 | $110 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Shogoki Tactile Switch | Lubed with tribosys 3203 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. No film is required. | 90 * 2 | $110 per pack shipped |
| Lubed Tecsee Coral Tactile Switch | Lubed with tribosys 3203 on bottom housing and stem, 105 on spring. No film is required. | 90 * 1 | $90 per pack shipped |
| Stabilizers | Description | Quantity (Pack) | Price (90 switches per pack if not specified otherwise) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lubed TX Stabilizers (Rev. 3) - 1.6mm PCB, WKL(7u), Black | Lubed TX Stabilizers, Krytox 205g0 on the stem and housing, Krytox XHT-BDZ on the wire, 4 * 2u + 1 * 7u spacebar wire. | 7 | $30 shipped per set with at least one pack of Lubed switches. or $35 shipped for stabs only purchase. |