Ill

I am sick.  Ill, really.  It is really bad this time.  My worst case of strep throat that I can remember.  I have taken five doses of ten of a really powerful antibiotic and I have the feeling that the bacteria is winning.  How bad is it?  My girlfriend came over four times this week and I couldn't do anything.  I missed three days in a row of work, came in for the fourth, but probably should not have.  I am suffering from dehydration and I can't eat solid foods.  I am at Tim Hortons right now dipping cinnamon roll in tea to make it palatable.  Yes it is that bad.  It is not enough.  A friend suggested that I down powerade to get more water into me.  It is not working.

I am moving this weekend too.  They can hospitalize me after that and hook me up to an IV 

Busy!

Busy busy busy.  

Work five days a week, 10 hours a day.  

I had two days with planting of flowers, Pansies.  I rediscovered that I am really fast at planting.  Or that others are half as fast as I am.  When the solid is prepared, tilled etc, then the planting is super fast.  I plant with two hands, push two fingers into the soil push plant in hole with the other and brush the soil around the plant. Repeat.  I can do thirty plants a minute and then I move.  Someone goes a head and places the plants and I follow behind and plant them. My hands get dirty, but I don't care because I get to feel the plants and the soil.  I also have to take the plant out of the cell pacs they come in.  More time consuming than planing, but I am fast at that too.  Pop them out and put them in a pile, the placer places them and then I plant.  I am faster because I use my hands and they use a trowel.  The other things I did this week were drive and mecanical stuff.  I am not very good at that.  The driving was the worst.  It included a day of driving to a site, loading winter equipment and then following the winter tractor at a break neck thirty kilometers an hour through city traffic.  And I nearly (did) fell asleep while driving twice because I was not sleeping for various reasons.  

Various reasons include Cpack problems.  I would drift off as normal and then it would make a shrill noise and I would wake, it would stop, I would drift off and then it would start again.  Monday night was the worst and I had three hours sleep.  Tuesday was the second worst, but then I stayed awake kissing Natural20 for three hours.  We did other things, but the kissing has been so enticing.  And then a night of sleeping like I did the night before.  The next nights I fixed the issue, but e fix had its own issues.  So I have been super tired all week.  I am hoping that I fixed the problem now for good, otherwise I will have to seek out another solution, like replacing parts of the unit, last time at was $100s and $100s. 

Last night I had a Meet Up with a polyamoury group.  First and last of this meet up group.  For one thing I am super busy.  For another I really like Natural20 and I want to spend all my spare time with her and I don't think I have time to spend with them.  They are a group of people that I have a lot in common with though and they were fun to be around.  I had a lot of fun!  But the same thing that always happens, people that I find interesting are not interested in me and people that are interested are the wrong gender and most of the people my own age are mutually uninterested in.  I remember what was said in an interview of the creator of OkCupid.  He said, "Men, straight or gay, find people in their 20s to be hottest.  Women, straight or gay, find people their own age to be the hottest.". Taking that into account if I find a woman hot, I look at her and ask myself as to how old she is.  If she is not my own age, I know that she is not interested.  If she were interested she would tell me.  

When I signed up to the polyamory group there was no Natural20 and when I signed up with this meet up it was weeks ago.  I had fun, but I wont be going back because 1) I don't need to hook up with anyone while I am with Natural20, even if I am her secondary, she is enough for me. 2) I have no time and I need my sleep.  Natural20 and I have figured out a schedule that is mutually beneficial to us and her husband; we get two nights a week together, one short visit and another that is long every other week— more than enough and I suspect rules shall be bent and extra meetings will occur.

I have a Meet Up in a few hours, one at I created, one that will eat up two more nights a week, plus hours of preparation.  Roleplaying, that is Exalted!, with up to two groups, in addition to the Nameless campaign.  Actually I am thinking that the campaigns will intertwine and join up with each other.  Three campaigns in the same setting and world at the same time.  It means that Nameless could make a guest appearance and people from the other campaign could drop by the other from time to time.  The exploits of the others will be open for the others to read and hear about.  This will take a lot of time.  Hopefully at one point Natural20 will want to join in.

Tomorrow I have another meetup.  I will try to leave one day a week to meet new people and do other things.  There is still a possibility of a third Roleplaying game that I wanted to run a first/second editionAD&D campaign using old adventures of the past.

I still have to prepare a bit more and maybe have a nap.

If the RPG gets off the ground and does not get destroyed due to lack of sleep, I will also be writing up the adventures on here for people to read, as well as at the meet up site.  

So see, busy busy busy.  I might explode!!!

Do I have an Honest Face?

Started a new job yesterday, perhaps for the summer, perhaps longer.  The place seems to be running smoothly, as it is old, it has been running in the same place for decades.  They trust that some employees will be tempted to steal and that some non employees will be tempted to steal.  Most of all the people seem nice.  But on the second day, I had two employees open up to me about personal issues and problems that they are going through and have experienced.  It is a little disconcerting.  It has been a while since something like this has happened to me, but it has happened.  It used to happen a lot.  I think that it is okay to do this to a friend, that is why they are your friend so that you can unburden yourselves on each other, sometimes it is by consent that it is one sided and sometimes it is no-sided.  But when you know the person one day and at that, only a couple conversations and none of them deep, it is a little weird.

It says: 1) I have to tell someone and you are here, 2) everyone knows this shit so I am bringing you up to speed first, 3) you seem like a person that can keep a secret so I am telling you.  The first one is excusable, we have all been there, and sometimes it just spills out but you should choose who you talk to carefully, like a friend.  The second, makes you feel like your coworker is unstable and that your coworkers are going to talk about you to EVERYONE, so choose your poison or better yet stop yourself.  In this case it is clear my coworker is unstable, but with a good reason.  The last is tricky.  There are people that have that face and sometimes they have the heart too, but sometimes they are bastards and will use what you tell them for their own interests, like writing about it for all to see in a blog.  My point is if you feel you can trust them, trust them with a little secret first.  Do not throw down your biggest secret and then hope they are that person.  The other thing is you are also assuming that they want to be the holder of your secret, they might not.  They might be traumatized by it.  Just saying, that you don't know and that if you think that their face is trustworthy or kind, you need to reexamine your ideas, you are probably wrong.

So don't burden the new guy.  Just don't.

Quick Note: Cost of Carbon

Yesterday I went for a couple of bike rides and I put them into a new app I got.  It follows my route and it calculates my speed and it also calculates the greenhouse gas savings I made, I assume based on regular single occupancy car travel.  According to the app I saved about 12 kg of carbon in 46 km of travel.  That is like 250g of carbon per km travelled.  It brings me back to my idea that the true cost of fossil fuel usage is the cost of using the fuel and the cost of removing the carbon from the environment.  Research on Wikipedia says that CO2 removal costs about 60 cents a kg and a liter of gasoline produces 2.3 kg of CO2, so therefore the cost of gasoline should be a minimum of a $1.38 a liter more than you pay for it.  Diesel produces 2.65 kg of CO2, so it it should cost $1.59 more a liter.  If a liter of gas/diesel cost $3, how fast would people call for more fuel efficient automobiles?  According to the Internet people spend about $22,000USD.  That translates to about 31,000 liters of gas.  So the real cost of a car is a lot more.  Here it is: the average cost of a car in Canada is $25,000.  Add 31,000 liters of gasoline at $1.25+$1.38 for carbon removal, is $81,500. Total $106,500 before maintenance costs.  That is assuming a fuel efficient non hybrid car.  A hybrid is more fuel efficient, get 50mpg as compared to 35mpg with an efficient car, so a hybrid costs $57,000 in cost of gasoline or about $82,000.  Electric cars have a approximate equivalent of 100mpg cost, more if it uses renewable electricity, hydro, wind, geothermal, some solar, dropping the fuel cost down to $28,500 with carbon removal costs.  The Tesla 3 costing about $35,000, so it has a cost of about $63,500 with carbon removal.  If your state or province produces clean power, like Ontario, the cost would drop to only the price tag price, $35000 plus the cost of the electricity to run it, about 4 cents a mile, about $4000.  

That is the point isn't it?  The cost of a car in its life is the true cost of a car.  Would you buy a car for 

Quick Note:Social life

Busy at last and in all things my social life.  Possibly too busy, is that possible?  After seeing Natural20 twice in one week, it looks like it will be another 10 days before I see her again.  It is my fault, my busy schedule and her schedule as well.  She wants to go to the mountain with me and meet the Wise woman there.  She wants to fix my problems and she thinks she has the magic bullet that will cure my ills.  She thinks that she can cure a life's worth of psychosis in a few sessions with her art.  And I want her to succeed.  She thinks if she can fix me I would be able to have great sex, to have an orgasm.  I want this, but I am worried that she is setting herself up for failure.  I mean, I have had autism my entire life and my problems have something to do with a life of rejections starting from when I was 16 and ending when I met her.  And part of it might be me subconsciously waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Me waiting for the rejection that might not be coming.  Perhaps I might get tired of waiting for it and become preemptive.  I hope not.  I really like her and if I take her at face value, she likes me a lot.  MPTR also like me a lot and she still passively rejected me.  She was the last person I had great sex with.  I am worried her rejection of me was the last time I felt I could trust a woman.  Worried.

I have a pub meet and greet on Tuesday evening.  I have a games night on Friday evening too.  Both are for a Polyamorous meet up.  I don't know what I am looking for.  Natural20 is is a polyamorous  relationship, he and her husband.  I am looking for the same thing.  Natural20 is worried, slightly, that I will meet a twenty year old woman who wants my babies and will not share me. Slightly.  I don't think that is possible.  I think a twenty year old could fall in love with me because I am someone that anyone could fall in love with, but I am not what a 20 year old is looking for.  I am not what a 30 year old is looking for, I may not even what a 40 year old is looking for in a monogamous relationship. I am what people look for in something more occasional.  Someone passionate and compassionate, loving and caring— the things that already have with someone else or don't and need.  I am someone who is different, who is playful and funny, not so serious and someone who is strong enough to make them feel like a little girl.  Everyone wants to feel that way.  To have a little fun.  

What do I want?  I want to have a little fun too.  I also want to love and be loved.  I want to feel secure; I don't expect to feel secure.  I want to lie down with someone all day long curled up together.  Like I was doing last night.  At one time I wanted children, but now I just want the luxury to lie beside someone all day.  Maybe two someones, but I don't expect that.  It would be very cool.  I am not even sure if I really want that though, but I am a guy so I do want that too.  

Common Courtesy

I have noticed another thing about the local Tim Hortons.  The clientele likes to get up and leave without throwing away their trash.  For me this is odd.  It is about common decency.  Anyone who gets up and just leaves their trash on the table is telling me that they don't care about other people.  When I come into the store I want to sit down and start typing.  I like it when there is a place for me to do it.  But when the majority of people just stand up and walk away from their mess it means very quickly, especially when the store is busy, there will be no place to sit down.  

Sure the store pays people to go around and clear up the messes on the floor and to wipe the tables but very often if you are sitting down and eating you are not going to leave any mess if you just pick up the paper and the disposable cups.  When the store is busy there is often only enough staff to deal with e orders coming in, often a store does not have enough staff to deal with those orders very swiftly.  So how can they stop and go out to clear the tables that people have left garbage on.  

Common curtesy is like common sense, anyone can have it, but unlike common sense it is something that you can cultivate—all it requires is empathy.  You know that feeling that you get when you think what it might feel like to be someone else.  More specifically the person who wants to sit down at the table you have just left your garbage at or e person who has to go by and pick up your garbage because you are too lazy to.  Just look around, there is probably a garbage close to where you are sitting and maybe one just outside the door.

Pick you shit up, or tip the staff who does it for you.

Weather of Caranus, also more complicated

Caranus as it has been written about by me before has a real Year of about twenty-four local years.  Local years being the time that it takes the two dancing Suns to orbit the Central Sun.  The real Year, however is the time it takes to pass through a complete cycle of seasons.  The world tilts on its axis and this creates it's season, much like that of Earth.  The planet in the Northern Hemisphere gets summer when the tilt exposes that hemisphere to more light and it is winter when the reverse is true.  Since the apparent seasons only change in the real year it can be quite confusing.  Additionally, the fact that for half of an apparent year the dancing suns are closer to the planet and half they are further away this adds additional complexity to the weather.  It is more complicated than that too.  The dancing suns eclipse each other twice every nine days and in addition the Red Sun feels cooler than the Yellow appearing sun.  So when it is dominant or eclipsing the Yellow, it is cooler too.  The yellow sun is the reverse.  What is poorly understood is that the majority of the heat of day comes from the Blue Sun.  So the coolest day in the year, the real year, is in the Winter when the Dancers Eclipse the Blue Sun and the Red Sun is dominant, typically this occurs once every two real years.  

Why is the Green Sun yellow and the Blue Sun invisible?  Rayleigh scattering!  The high energy wavelengths of light are bent by the atmosphere, that is all the blue light.  The Blue Sun appears invisible because all its light is scattered.  The Green Sun is made of green and yellow light and the green light is scattered.  None of the red light of the Red Sun is scattered.  An additional effect is when the Blue Sun is eclipsed completely, the sky is green when the Yellow Sun is dominant and the sky is black when the Red sun is dominant— the stars are visible and the moons and it is for this reason that being born while the Red Sun is dominant is such bad luck.  It is why the Red Sun is associated with Death and War.  When the Red Sun is dominant, and the Blue Sun out, the plants appear black too as when the Blue Sun is eclipsed.  Many plants have pigments in their leaves, many animals too that reflect blue or red light.  The green light is reflected by the chlorophyl in the plants which is why they are Green. 

Weather is very complicated on Caranus.  Add that it spins the other way so the sun rises in the West and sets in the East.  And the wind and water currents flow the other way too.  

Seasons are longer, which means that the temperatures are more stable, even accounting for the three different suns effects.  Each season take twenty-four times as long to adjust as it does on Earth, so there is no lag time.  Winters in the extreme parts of the world are also more extreme.  The tropical places are more extreme too, hotter than is comfortable when the sun is overhead and less so when it is not.  Equatorial places have two unlivablly warm times and two that are not.  Subtropical places have dangerously hot summers and hot springs and autumns with winters that are temperate.  Temperate climes have warm Summers and temperate springs and autumns cool or cold winters.  Arctic regions have temperate summers and cold autumns and springs and bitter winters.

The weather of some regions is affected by the topography and the circulation patterns of the world.  For example the place where the Migrants landed is the most northerly region of the continent of Caranus.  It has a arctic subarctic climate and it would normally be uninhabitable except for two things, the mountainous terrain and the very large warm ocean current that travels up the coast where they live.  The waters warm the air year round and the warm air dumps more rain there than any place on the planet, well, that is how the inhabitants feel anyways.  Just over the mountains, where the settlers grow most of their wheat, the weather is starkly different.  There is only one growing season and it is limited to summer.  The autumn becomes increasingly cold and the deep lakes there freeze over in the very cold Winters the lakes freeze many tens of meters deep and it takes much of the warmer Spring period to melt that ice.  The summers feature extended periods of day light, between sixteen and twenty-two hours a day that allows the land to give forth upwards of twenty harvests (over about six years of summer).  The winters are so bad though that the people move hundreds of kilometers over the mountains to the cities for the winter.  While warmer, the constant rain is bad for crops in the cities.  Almost all crops are grown in the brief summer.  

The Shinning Lakes are a place with little human habitation.  Directly on the Equator in dense Jungles the waters erupt in the heat of the day as rich and other aquatic beasts breach the surface to cool down, the evaporation off their bodies does the trick. In the Summer and the Winter the temperatures are nearly tolerable and it is impossibly hot in the spring and autumns, over 60°C in the day times.  It is the frothing surface that gives these tropical lakes their name.  

The rain-shadow of mountains is on the opposite side as it is on Earth.  The great temperate deserts tend to be on the western sides and not the Eastern sides.  With more rain on the opposite sides.  Cold water currents dry the land nearby.  Forested regions receive more rainfall than unforested regions. such is life 

A Start: Caranus

The newcomers to the continent of Caranus arrived 214 years ago.  It was the single biggest migration in their history and it was one of the largest ever.  They way it was put forward to them was that they had to bring their entire society or no one would be welcome.  They had to bring not only the wealthy, the artisans and the trades people, but they had to bring the labourers and the beggars too.  It was the only way that the magical geas that surrounded the country could be breached.  The only way that had ever succeeded.  

Why this was so was told to their king quite boldly by a member of the race that formed the role of Guardians of Caranus.  The King was told that Fate knew that to bring less would bring failure, so they prevented any attempt at all.  After he proved his power, he then told that Emperor what he needed to do to accomplish the migration.  Simply put, the nation must devote the wealth of the empire into building three huge ships that were to be invested with the greatest magic that the nation could produce.  He told the Emperor, that the undertaking was so grand and so huge that the flotilla would only be ready at the end of his Grandson's reign.  Since he was still young and unmarried, this was a considerable promise, but the Guardian knew much as he could see between the paths of the future; he could see which actions would lead to ends that were disaterous and which actions led to great success.  

The Guardian lied to the Emperor.  He knew that if the resources were devoted to shoring up the King's Empire that it would endure for thousands of years to come, but if he did see to his empire and did not set in motion the Great Migration, the great Blue Sun Prophet would not be born in three hundred years and Caranus would not have her services in its needs.  No one thought to ask who the Guardian guarded.  He guarded the needs of Caranus,  a thousans of days across the great ocean; he did not care a wit for the Empire.

The tree ships were two and a half kilometers long and half a kilometer wide, contained twenty decks apiece.  The lives of hundreds of great mages had been poured into the creation of these three ships.  It was the minimum of space required for the people and the voyage.  Not the entirety of the population of the empire would have fit on the three ship when the construction was begun, but when the construction had been completed, the empire had been reduced considerly.  

Loading of the food and animals for the massive journey had stripped the land for many years.  After the ships had set out, the invaders that had shrunk the Empire for more than a hundred years, found a city of splendors whose lands could not support anything.  They found a shell and that is it, the three vessels already over the horizon.  

200 years after the Great Crossing, the last of the Great ships stood out on the waters in the morning light where it had run aground.  The magics on the hull remained potent still then.  The other two had been dismantled and used to build the new Empire.  The Large forecastle of one ship stood on the high hill peak and served as the castle of the King, the deck plates had been dismantled and arranged as the Imperial Road surface.  Lesser streets had to be content with woodden planks.  There was no stone for building in this new land, and no clay to fashion bricks, but there was plenty of great stands of trees and rain that fell every day from the sky.  The last day without rain happened over a hundred years previously and that day had snow.  The warm currents off shore brought more than a dozen meters of rainfall each year but also warmed the air so that the Winter, that lasted here eight years at a time, and cooled the Summers that lasted an equally long time.  

The Guardian was happy though, the Blue Sun Prophet had been born four years ago somewhere and was coming to the city soon.  

Be happy!

Strange things are happening these days.  I sat down and took a look back at the last few months and I realized that I was happy.  Not really happy, but pleasantly happy.  I started trying to figure out what changed.  It is not getting a girl friend, sorry Natural20, but it is not you.  It has been building for a few months now.  A few different sources too.  I spent a very relaxing few months with a friend and did friend things, the days were not overly happy, but the entire experience has left me with good feelings.  I went on a date in November and it was such a good experience that it changed my outlook for the next few months on dating.  There was no sex on the dates, but I felt worth dating people and my self worth increased too.  I had another date with PrettyKitty a couple of months later and I was much more confident with myself and it felt good too, even though I knew that it was not going anywhere except at most good friends or a booty call or two.  Good friends was a good end.  

The diagnosis of Demisexual/Demiromantic was also a great step to putting my expectations into focus.  I stopped thinking that sex was the goal to dating relegating it to something that might happen and if it did not, it was not the end of the world—that was a big relief actually; pressure off.  Exploring Polyamory is also a big thing, because most of the people I am, have been attracted to have been polyamorous, so maybe I should embrace the possibility too.  I am as of now not in a polyamorous relationship except as a secondary.  I have joined a poly meet up group to see if I connect with anyone.  I sort of have to, because I really like Natural20 and I want to continue seeing her.  When we chose the pseudonym Natural20 it was because I was thinking that I had rolled the dice and got her and she is so perfect for me on many levels.  I don't want to end my relationship with her because I meet some woman who wants me all for herself especially when history tells me that I am too much for any one person to handle.  

I have gone out and met people since coming to BigSmoke and I enjoy that too. More than I would have guessed.  I played a different RPG on Sunday and reconnected with someone I had not seen in over five years.  I felt something when I was in her presence, nothing sexual, and I had fun like I have not had with roleplaying in years.  On that: yesterday I submitted a proposal to run a game in a meetup and I am hoping to get one started, perhaps as many as two games.  Later after I move and I have established a good set of stable players, I want to run another series of games: old first edition D&D adventures.

Maybe, this is the sort of thing that I need to do that will kickstart another aspect of my life, my teaching career.  I am still enamoured with teaching.  I am getting old, to old to landscape and I am not using my mind the way that I can.  I crave to be the best person I can be.

These are the reasons why I am happy.  Sex IS part of it, but not in the way that I thought it would be for years before.   What is troubling is the role that television has in my life now, it is disturbing how it has snuck in to it.

The Nameless Wolf is Discovered: Against the Slave States

I have not updated in a while what happened with the Nameless and his story with the Slave States.  

The Nameless was traveling to Wallport to pick up news from various centers when he got he news.  Jafar, the Southern Guild trader who headed the trading concerns in Whitewall and who was the Nameless's partner in a little venture had left a note that something had happened to the venture.  The caravan had been successful, but had not returned from the expedition.  Jafar had gone out just before the trade season closed for the winter to attempt to find the caravan.  This was clearly very foolhardy of him because winters in the north are unpredictable and storms have in e past been known to freeze a man solid in under an hour.  The Nameless immediately decided that he would offer his help to Jafar and headed north.  

When he arrived in Whitewall he made a cursory inquiry to see if Jafar had come back yet, the missive he had recieved was many months out of date, but there was no word of his arrival and the first snows had already arrived in Whitewall, which meant further north, Winter would be in full swing.  Unfortunately, he was waylaid by his friend Bertrod who told him that she had business in Gethamane, her mother lived there.  What is more, she had made the extremely dangerous passage between the two cities in the winter before and she could then act as his guide.  The trip to Gethamane was indeed difficult and Bertrod did hold the Nameless back as he surmised, but he was happy that he could spend more time with her so he was not too upset.  

On the way they encountered a Realm Caravan heading to the north with three large Yedims pulling heavily laden wagons and they decided to tag along as the well equipped expedition would be safer than traveling alone.  The Caravan was not allowed to stop in Gethamane because the Realm had been barred from the City under the Mountain.  So while they stayed briefly in the city so that Bertrod could meet up with her mother, the Golden Raven.  

It was in Gethamane that the Nameless found Jafar.  He told Nameless that he managed to get to the Haslanti League town that the caravan last traded in and that it therefore disappeared between there and Gethamane.  He back tracked to Gethamane just before the winter truly got very bad and was forced to stay here.  It was obvious to The Nameless that Jafar was hiding something from him but gave him the benefit of the doubt because he appeared to be more concerned for the caravan people than the cargo that they carried. Together, Jafar and Bertrod headed out to find the Caravan a few days later, as The Nameless was confident that he could find it.  There was some concern that they had met some foul end since the North was alive with the rumours that there was a Lunar Anathema loose in the area.  

Not far from the Haslanti League, the Nameless felt as though the trail they were on diverged to the West and he was sure that the lost caravan had been dragged off in that direction.  The last minutes of the day were dwindling and he thought that to send his two mortal companions on alone to the town that he was sure just over the rise was too dangerous, so he brought them along with him.  His intuition was corrects and just a few hours later he found the ruins of the Caravan, but by then a group of marauding creatures had also picked up their scent and had begun tracking them.  There was no cover anywhere near by, so he made for the Caravan.  

Upon arriving at the caravan he learned a horrible truth, the caravan was sitting in a very small Shadowland, just a little larger than the caravan itself and by approaching the wreckage he and his companions had slipped into the Underworld.  The Underworld was immediately and noticeably different.  The cold, wind swept snowy plain was replaced by a stark and drab plain of dirty covered with sickly dead grass.  Stepping away from the caravan did not restore the misstep; they were trapped until dawn.  

Making the best of the situation, he noted that there was a town in the near distance.  He alone approached the town and began to feel that the area was familiar to him, not the town itself but the entire region.  He also noticed that there was someone who was watching him from the town.  And this made him curious enough to plan to come back here when everything was done.  He determined that the lightening of the Eastern sky meant that the dawn was not to far off so he set off for the ruined caravan to collect Bertrod and Jafar.

 With dawn, they were able to leave the Underworld and reenter Creation, however this also meant that they had to suffer through the temperatures and the cold.  The Nameless ushered his companions onward toward the Haslanti League and to the safety of the first town of the League.  It took nearly two days and all the time there were hints of wild men dogging their heels.  When they arrived, the Nameless, bade his companions to stay in the safety of the inn in the town and the safety of the walls, while he went back with a sleigh and supplies to retrieve the materials on the ruined caravan.

Alone, the nameless was able to make better time even while pulling the heavy sleigh laden with materials.  He arrived before the evening but stayed away from the caravan and the possibility of entering the Shadowland and the Underworld again.  In the morning he loaded the supplies onto the sleigh and began to make his way back to the town.  The going was tough initially until he pulled on the essence in the air and fueled his strength, then the journey was just as easy as the trip there.  He arrived just as the sun was setting.  He pulled the sleigh up to the inn so that he could be ready to start out early the next day, but he realized that there was something wrong.  The inn was broken and burnt out shell and from the pooled ice at its base, it happened the previous evening.

The Nameless quickly assessed the situation and studied the scene.  He discerned that the damage to the inn was from great physical damage, from either a huge animal or a siege weapon.  He saw from the footprints in the in the snow that there had been a large force of beastmen along with a very large beastman, probably the Lunar Chimera that he had been warned about.  And he also discerned that he was not the only one who looked over this scene.  There were five people in heavy armour that had surveyed the scene as well.  Just out of the town he discovered the Source of the latter.  The caravan that he had travelled with to Gethamane was there and it was unloaded.  The twenty-five guards were in tight fitting armour and the caravan masters were dressed in Warstriders.  And they were already heading out to hunt down the Lunar Anathema.  

The largest Warstrider turned to him and the helmet cleared to transparent and the leader of the Dragon Blooded Wyld Hunt spoke clearly, "We will find your wife, Whitewaller," using the assumed name that he gave them, "we'll hunt it down and save the townsfolk if we can".  The Nameless was not confident that if they cornered the Chimera and the Beastmen, there would not be much left of the townsfolk, Bertrod or Jafar.  He set out immediately, trailing the Wyld Hunt and attempting to pass them by.  

The Realm Warstriders needed to pick their paths so that the ground was level and their prey knew this and took a path that went over harsh uneven terrain and took to narrow paths through gullies.  The Nameless had no such limitations.  He tracked his prey though these harder paths until he saw that the group had split into two groups and took different paths.  He hesitated only a moment, looked at the tracks and saw that there were two sets of beastmen, one that was a carnivore animal hybrid and the other something else.  Not knowing which was worse, he chose the path with the known predator.  He quickly gained on them as it became clear that their destination was a tall butte of rock overlooking the plain.  

He caught up to the group of animal men, part wolf and part human, as they were pushing their captives through a narrow crevasse and up onto the plateau.  The beastmen were savaging the towns folk if they were slow, between the last of them, they were sharing a couple of limbs from one such person.  The Nameless, took a knee and raised his bow targeting the last beastman in the pack.  The arrow took his target silently in the base of its head and it fell without making a sound.  The second and the third were standing together when they each fell.  The forth was amongst the townsfolk and a panic began.

The beastmen charged straight for the Solar bowman running to close the distance and the Nameless, did the unexpected and charged straight for them as well, firing his arrow as he advanced.  By the time his bow ceased thrumming, all the charging foes were dead, the last took a shot straight through its eye.  The remaining beastmen were pushing their prey forward with savagery meant to hasten them.  The Nameless took note of which beastman used violence and which merely pushed hard. The latter's lives ended quickly and the former he wounded or hamstrung to be left to die from exposure.  Once rescued, the Nameless gathered the towns golf together and equipped them with their foe's armaments and told them if they felt able to head back home, if not to wait until he returned.  The Townsfolk thought that they might have a better chance to leave right away, as they were not sure if their rescuer could defeat the main foe.

Sounds of battle rose from the far end of the plateau.  It sounded as if great magics were being hurled.  Great claps and echoes rebounded from the surrounding cliff walls.  The Nameless ran with no undo haste.  The threat that the Lunar and the Wyld Hunt might cause to his friends and the other captives, inadvertent and real, pushed him on.  When he came into the clearing where the battle was being faught, he found that his fears were at once unfounded and real; no civilian was injured or even present, but the Realm hunters were shattered and broken, even the colossal Warstrider, juggernaut class was down and chunks of its armour lay scattered.  The twelve foot glowering man-beast, part wolf and part man, all muscle and covered with massive thick plates crouched over its downed foe like some great carnivore worrying its prey to eat the most succulent parts.  At once it heard the approaching Solar and it stopped and turned its head.  The Dragon Blooded general seeing a momentary respite fired a chemically fired spear from its launcher at point blank range into the unarmoured gut of the beast.  The spear, thicker than the leg of a man, did not gore it's target, but instead the spear stove in and splintered, falling to the side after directly hitting the creature.  It's claws returned to the jade steel armour and tore them like paper.  From its terrible mandible covered maw, it emitted a blood chilling howl.

The Nameless did not want to battle, so instead identified himself for all to see, most especially the Lunar foe.  His caste mark glowed with the light of a large bonfire, dispelling the darkness of the night out to a spear cast distance.  The Chimera roared out a challenge and leaped to his feat, charging The Nameless. Checking his ammunition, he pulled the sharpest armour piercing shafts from his quiver and he drew his bow back so that the fetching was against his ear and loosed shaft after shaft into the beast.  Each volley he took a step back towards the edge of the butte and called out to the creature that was in a blind rage, that he was weak and impotent as compared to him.  The beast in turn charged wrecklessly forward ignorant, or else unconcerned, of the edge of the cliff.  Each haft struck and broke upon the armour and yet each such insult seemed to score an inversely deep wound.  The charge ended predictably, arms outstretched to bear the Solar with him as he ran off the cliff, claws ready to rend the Solar as he flew off the edge and down, but then it was not so, as the beast hurtled towards the bottom of the drop, The Nameless managed to impossibly step out of the way.  One moment he was staring at the beast an arrow length away, and the next he was watching the beast tumble down towards plain floor, three hundred meters down.  The Nameless, never willing to leave things to chance pried a chunk from the wall and sent it down to crush the beast.  

The Lunar Chimera crashed into the frozen ground.  The snow and ice covering it puffed up like a summer cloud and the dirt and rocks split apart at the violence of the impact. But there was still life left in the beast, it howled defiance and clawed at its impromptu barrow, when the side of the cliff that Namless Wolf had pulled of and threw down impacted and split his skull like a rotted melon tossed from a precipice at great height.  The stone lay still, gore slowly froze in the snow and ice.

The Nameless Wolf, rose and checked on the damaged Warstrider.  The Dragon-Blooded General was slowly extracting himself from the ruined battle armour.  "Do what you will Anathema, I will, or someone like me will hunt you down next!". The Nameless, picked up his Diaklave and tossed it casually over the cliff and then helped him out of the Warstrider.  His arm was clearly broken and he had been bleeding.  

"As you will, but first take care of your men and get the townsfolk back to the town safely.". He then began to look for his companions and the rest of the people.  He had not taken a step before he heard a commotion from within a cave in a nearby cliff top.  There was a beastman fleeing from its confines and a man fox amalgam chased after it cutting it with its claws and jaws.  Fearing yet another unholy assault he charged forth and raised hi hand to his quiver to draw and shoot at the fell beast only to realize he had no arrows left.  He was stayed mid stride when a mad of twins folk spilled out of the cavern following behind.  Together they stoned the fleeing beastman and cheered the Foxman like a hero.  

Upon getting closer the brown fox man began to loose his lupine features and regain his normal dark skin tone.  The Foxman was Jafar and one of the townsfolk was Bertrod.  The Nameless turned to them all and told them to stick near the Wyld Hunt soldiers and they would see them all to safety.  Then he took hold of Bertrod and ushered her ahead of him.  When they were safely away he stopped her and kissed her deeply and inquired as to whether she was safe and uninjured.  To Jafar, he simply asked what had happened?  Meaning his new and exalted status.  Jafar, broke down, he was afraid that he had been possessed and was now a demon Anathema too.  Nameless did not wait for him to stop, but instead slapped him once across the face.  "Stop it, you saved those people.  You are a hero, not a demon.  Just like me.  The stories are lies, never forget that."

"He speaks truth," a voice from above restated.  A large Hawk man down from his glide to land gently.  "You are chosen of Luna, and you are meant to safeguard the lands of Creation from the its enemies." After a long conversation establishing who this person was and his claim in the area, Jafar continued his story.  Jafar said that he had lied about part of his story from before.  He had travelled from Gethamane to find the caravan as he had said, but an unexpected fog had descended upon his small train of animals freezing them solid in an instant.  The cold would have froze him just as quickly except he was leading the animals and had seen them freeze quickly one by one and he had kept his head and threw himself deep into a snow drift. It was terribly cold but only his feet remained exposed to the cold and so it was only there that he suffered instant freezing.  When the cold had passed, he climbed out of the snow and crawled the remaining several kilometers into civilization.  When he got to the inn they took him in and treated his injuries, but he felt fine otherwise.  His feet had the appearance of severe frostbite, they were frozen solid he said, but examination proved that he was incorrect, just the skin was as black as coal.  He found out what he needed to know and began to head back to Gethamane.  On the journey there he discovered his ability to change into a desert fox.  This distressed him and he hoped it was just his imagination.

The Hawk man, reassured him that he was indeed a Lunar Exalted and that the desert Fox was his totem animal and he was lucky that he did not just sneak off and ignore what had happened, as that is what had happened to the one that had attacked the inn.  He was Chimera, one who could not control his powers and whose powers controlled him.  He said when you are ready seek me out in the wilderness north of Gethamane and I will tell you more of what you can do and introduce you to the rest.  With that he once again took to the skies and flew off.

The Nameless gathered the supplies and the sleigh and placed Bertrod comfortably in the furs there and began to pull everything off towards Gethamane with Jafar.  A short distance from Gethamane, the nameless bade Jafar to seek out the strange Lunar and learn his ways, he only wished that he had been able to receive guidance as well, and that it could only help him if he accepted it.  He installed Bertrod with her mother the Golden Raven and set off again to find the Shadowland and from there to discover what it was so familiar to him, thinking when he returned, Bertrod would be ready for e perilous journey back south.  

The town through the Shadowland and thus in the Underworld was situated on the shores of the Icy Sea, but this icy Sea was without pack ice and was permanently becalmed.  The people of the town were strangely green in hue, but otherwise perfectly normal looking, empowering clothing that was out of fashion.  A voice over his shoulder answered his unasked question, they had h 

died in the Contagion, a disease that had swept the world at the dawn of the fallen Second Age.  He turned, and saw a man  dressed in a immaculate black and white uniform.  He told the Nameless that he was his servant, First Servant, his household's Stewart.  

Nameless asked how this was so?  The story came out that in the First Age he had been his most trusted servant and as such he had provided the very best care and was able to live for over a thousand years in return for such indispensable service.  When the Age came to an end, First Servant still served  his master as his butler when he took over the running of Camp 17.  He was at his post serving when he died, but failed to notice his passing.  The Nameless's previous incarnation accepted his continued servitude without hesitation but set him upon his current task of observation.  When he saw the Nameless he recognized him right away a came to renew his servitude.  

He asked Nameless if he came here to observer that his ancestral estates were still being adequately being taken care of and he gestured out to sea.  The Nameless was confused.  First Servant chuckled and stated quietly, they were not always covered in water, but only since the wicked Terrestrials betrayed the Solars.  He answered the blank stares that the Spider Silk damn must have failed filling the Vale up with the waters, drowning a hundred million souls.  While the deluge must have been a disaster close to the damn, the waters this close to the edge rose steadily but slowly enough that the lands could be evacuated.  The sea at this point is very shallow for a long time.  Would you like to see your estate, Master he asked?

The journey was slow by rowboat, but since he refused to allow the Nameless a turn on the oars, he instead inquired as to things from the first age.  When he arrived, First Servant informed Nameless that the manse was fifty meters down from where they were and that he would be here when he returned.

The water was cold, but not frozen as it was in Creation.  The manse was where First Servant said it was and despite the thousand plus years underwater there was still air in the spectral dome.  He found the hearthstone and nothing of any value so he returned to the surface.  While First Servant rowed back to shore, the Nameless, insisted that when he was done this service, he should be dismissed to go where ever he wanted.  First Servant, also pleaded stating that he still could be of service to him, acting as eyes and ears to him in the underworld, as he, First Servant, was wise to the ways there and he was not.  His argument must have swayed him as Nameless did not dismiss him before he left.  

Nameless vanished in the grey dawn of the Underworld as he stepped into Creation.  The sand of the Underworld shifted a scant five feet from First Servant.  The granules of sand vibrated gently then fell down into the earth.  The sand beside the spot began hour glassing into the ground a little vortex spreading to a larger one, within seconds a black void began eating up the light in that spot and the sound of the sand draining away dissipated.  A rasping voice croaked out from the void, "Report." First Servant bowed deeply and replied.  "All is well Master, your replacement took the bait and has accepted my service.". The void slowly dwindled and the sand reversed its flow, the granules of sand jumped back into place and as the word "Good" rasped through.

The Nameless learned from First Servant that if there existed a manse in the Underworld under the sea, then surely there was one in Creation too.  He walked out across the pack ice out to where he thought he was on the other side and began to chip and dig into the ice.  After descending through two meters of ice he broke through.  The water was much colder in creation than it was in the Underworld, but the Manse was there also and there was a stream of bubbles rising up from the doors.  The grounds of the underwater manse were covered with a colourful verdant growth of various seaweeds and kelp.  The forest mimicked the appearance of a real live forest that no longer existed  in the North.  Indeed there was a great abundance of life surrounding the manse.  Fish of all sizes and colours used the foliage as food and shelter and large seals swam from the manse itself and to the forest eating from the bounty.  Far in the distance the silhouette of massive sharks could be seen lurking just out of reach of the light of the Nameless's caste mark.  Inside the manse was ruined as only water could do, that and the continuous habitation of seals for a thousand years could do.  Still the air was fresh and clean and it was only the numbing cold of the water that forced him into the colder air of the surface.  The hearthstone recovered from two manses, one in the Underworld and one in creation, a Wood Manse.

The Nameless quickly gathered up Bertrod from Gethamane and headed to to Whitewall.  On the way he reflected on his experiences and he realized that he now understood that the fabric of reality could be altered with words of power and be reshaped under his direction; he had learned the first step in understanding Sorcery and how the world really works.  In Whitewall he asked to study sorcery in the university and the Syndics granted his request.

It took him three days to travel the distance to Nowhere that normally took him three months.  This time he did it in style, appearing as a figure in a tornado that moved under his control.

500!!

This is my 500th post.  

A lot has changed from the first years of this blog and a lot has stayed the same.  I am not talking about me, mind you, I am talking about the blog.

The first big change is how the blog is being read.  Over half of the past month's reads have been done from a mobile device as compared to the entire life of the blog, where only ten percent of page views were on mobile devices.  That is a pretty significant change.

About 24% of all page views come from Canada and 20% from the united States.  8% from Russia.  About 30-40 percent of page views are from countries outside of the top ten countries.  And each one with 1% or less of the views.

Chrome is the number on browser at 34%, Explorer has 31% and Firefox has 22%, all the rest have less than 5% of the share of the views.  Operating systems, Windows wins with 57%, Linux at 21% and Android at 7% the rest 5% or less ( combined Apple is 8%).  

The most popular post was "Driverless Cars", but that was where an italian computer had a glitch and wracked up 100+ page-views in an hour next is "Lonely Feminist Atheist" but those are almost all from China over a few months, probably some people looking for a date.  Most of the popular posts are from 2011 and 2012, but that is to be expected as they are older and could get more hits over time.

Most page views per month occurred in July of 2015, but they include most of the Driverless Cars post as well.  Seven months were over 350 page views.  Pretty good considering I don't post a lot of pictures.  Someone told me you get a lot of hits for pictures.  

I still have until June or July to hit the Five year mark of the blog.  Still if I stop now, that would be 100 posts a year on average.

Walk to the mountain

I went to the mountain yesterday to talk to the WiseWomanOfTheMountain.  I learned a lot.  I talked with her about my life and she talked about her life.  She told me how much she has enjoyed observing me over the eight years at she has known me.  She tells me I have changed so much.  If she had met me just two years earlier she would have met me before I realized I had Autism, but the coming to grips with the autism and then making concrete changes in my life to mitigate the condition only really started after I met her.  She was not that cause, she was as she said just an observer.  

We talked about Natural20.  She wanted to know about her and she most of all wanted to know important details, not her height, nor her other demensions; she wanted to know the ones that would impact my life like e nature of her relationships with the other people in her life.  She wanted to make sure that Nat20 was going to not bring drama into my life.  She wanted to know about the other people in my life that she knows and the ones she does not.  She explained the difference between Hippie and Hipster.  She explained what it means to be a man or a woman who lives in a box and one that lives out of the box.  I live out of the box, but that might be a factor of who I am rather than a conscious desicion.  

We talked about poop.

We talked about cats.

About her hair.  Her children.

A job interview.  About her area she lives in.  About the people in her life and the cardinal sin in her books: gossiping about her to her.  Gossiping about other people is what happens but it should not happen.  Spreading gossip about the person you are talking to, to them, after swearing secrecy about the subject.  Well I hope I never did that.  I hope that I never will

I left the mountain understanding more about me than I arrived knowing.  That is what happens when you talk to Wise Women on Mountains.

#hardcorehenry

Last Wednesday I got a chance to go see a preview of a movie, Hardcore Henry.  It is the first of a number of First Person movies that I am sure that will be made following the coat tails of this movie.  As the trailer begins, you find yourself in a tank filled with water or some medical solution, it drains, and you find yourself with a pretty young woman who calls you your wife.  You seem to have suffered grievous injuries and two of your limbs are missing and bionic replacements have been added.  Five minutes after that while technicians are trying to load up your voice there is an attack and you are forced to flee for your life and your wife has been kidnapped.  

The start is like many SciFi video games, lots of information and a plot and then like that you go through the motions of learning the game controls, and the movie is slow then it ramps up and violence insues.  It is jarring, as you are thrown to the side as you duck under cars as they try to hunt you down. 

Through the story, you meet allies and pick of several weapons and use them, everything from guns to knives to grenades to missiles.  You kill a lot of people with your bare hands too, because you have super bionic strength.  There is a lot of humour too because otherwise this would have been a grim, very grim movie.  There are many inside jokes for people who play first person shooters, which I am not one of those, but I still understood.  There are plot twists that will throw you for a loop unless you are paying very close attention.  

The end was not a surprise but still everyone cheered when it occured.  That is why this movie succeeded, the hero was not James Bond, or Rambo; the hero was you.  No voice was okay because you were watching e movie so you weren't talking either, people were talking to you.  Yes it was excessively violent, but all first person shooters are, it was more graphic, and it was busier than all computer games, but it was that style.

#hardcorehenry

More hearthstones

Hearthstones near Nowhere part 2

There is a secondary Dragon Line of Earth passing through the edge of the Inner Sea, a circle repeating the primary Dragon Line in the Realm in the Blessed Isle.  It passes through the south of the north shore and is thus south of Nowhere, but since it is a secondary Dragon Line wherever any other Dragon Line intersects it, a disturbance is created and Essence flows into the environment creating more powerful Demesne.  These demesnes are automatically level 2 or above.  Since there is another secondary Dragon line that runs through the Inner sea, a Water line, there are plenty of tertiary lines branching off it that cross the Earth line.  Additional tertiary Dragon lines also cross here.  In the stretch of this Earth Dragon Line, there are four level three Demesnes and three level two.

Level 2 demesnes 

Earth 2, Solar 1. Solar*

Earth 2, Fire 1. Earth

Earth 2, Water 1. Earth

Level 3 demesnes

Earth 2, water 1, fire 1. Earth

Earth 2, solar 1, air 1. Solar*

Earth 2, water 1, fire 1. Earth

Earth 2, fire 1, air 1. Earth

* remember Celestial Dragon lines count twice for the purposes of determining demesne aspect and manipulation of the environment can push a demesne one way or another in the case of ties.

Most of this region was last in regular habitation in the mid to late Shogunate era, but before that it was a heavily populated First Age region.  Most of the Demesnes of this area were capped with Manse and used to power a lot of the technology of the area.  Many of these manses were created by Solar Geomancy Engineers and so most of these manses survive to this day, but many of the lower level demesnes were capped by Terrestrial Engineers and therefore required maintenance.  Many of these Manses suffered degradation and either collapsed or exploded in e years after the Shogunate.  All the demesne and manses of this area are in wilderness that has not been disturbed for nearly eight hundred years.  

Level 2 Manse, Solar aspect

The two story, round building at the center of is clearing, has been built of white marble alternated with crystal panels.  The crystal is slightly taller than the marble giving the building an appearance of fortress with battlements.  The marble segments of the walls are pierced each with a single tall slit window that starts just ten feet from the bottom and continues to almost the top.  There are numerous statues of great warriors standing in heroic poses fighting off Creation's enemies; the worked metal on the statues is positioned precisely to reflect the light of Dawn through the various window slits in the walls.  The rest of the grounds are fashioned in such a way as to make a direct approach to the building impossible while on foot.  The interior of the Manse is in fact only one level with a flat roof behind the remaining ten feet of the wall.   The interior is fully lit during the day through the windows and the crystal walls and at night as the interior walls glow with a gentle red light.  There are four rooms in this Manse, three identical outer rooms that each take a third of the outer wall and a central chamber in the center that includes the stairs to the roof and the entrance to the Manse and the Hearthstone.  The central room connects to the room on the side at the  one o'clock position.  The outer rooms connect counter clockwise from there.  This Manse was one Daw Caste's Summer getaway cottage in the first age.  The walls of the manse have a subtle repulsion affect that keeps all things of one or less essence away from the walls.  Humans, animals and insects avoid this manse.  Hearthstone affect, adds two dice to a join battle role (not join debate) and allows an awareness check if owner is conscious to avoid surprise, difficulty of opposing essence.

Level 2 Earth demesne

This section of the forest has grown over a demesne.  The plant life here is unusually large and well grown.  There is lush grass and trees everywhere and varieties of plant life that belongs far to the south.  The ground here is constantly warm and the ground never freezes.  When it snows, the snow melts here first and the air is alway warmer here.  There is an overwhelming feeling of lethargy in this area.  Any creature that stays in the area for longer than an hour must make a stamina check difficulty of two or fall asleep.  Any sleeping creatures must make another check a day later to wake up, losing on die for every day that they have slept here.  When the creature runs out of dice, they die having slept themselves to death and their bodies sink into the ground over a day.  Those bodies gradually turn to white jade over a years time.  If one should wake from their repose, they are completely refreshed and do not need to sleep again until twice the time they were asleep passes.

Level 2 Earth demesne 

A stream from the nearby mountains drains into this valley.  The ground is spongy and is water logged, no plants grow here but reeds and red irises.  The ground here is treacherous as the ground appears solid but is actually more of the consistency of water.  Only the lightest of treads has any hope of passing through this fen unscathed, everything heavier than a reed or a small iris sinks beneath the surface.  There is one exception large quantities of white jade do not sink, about the amounts that are in Superheavy Plate.  The Red irises are unique to this fen.  If they are dug up with a pure white jade shovel in Resplendent Earth, on a new moon, they can be added to artifacts to make them more buoyant in water. 

Level 3 Earth Demesne

The forest here is always filled with mist, even on the coldest days.  The smell of brimstone permeates the air.  Large blocks of cracked marble lie erratically through the woods, remains of a massive explosion.  The closer to the smell that one gets the more twisted and fouled the vegetation looks until it slowly dwindles to nothing.  The forest is replaced with a field of bubbling puddles, the source of the stench.  The puddles are filled with massive yellow crystals that are growing from the pools.  Most of these crystals are made. from silicone and sulphur, but a few of them have at their core yellow jade.  It is hard to tell which ones and the stench is really bad as there are poisonous gasses mixed in with the less noxious gasses.  Anything that needs to breathe will suffer environmental damage from exposure to the fumes.  Stamina + resistance with a difficulty equal to the number of hours spent in the gasses.  Failure results in loss of consciousness and unless removed, death.  Exalted may use charms to ignore the effect, if possible.  If the crystals are not opened within the gases no yellow jade will be found.  Yellow Jade will be found with five successes on a craft roll (craft Earth)

Level 3 Solar Manse

The cliff of this escarpment overlooks the artificial lake.  The blowing wind picks out the postmarked sides of the limestone walls creating eerie sounds.  A gap in the cliff wall looks directly towards the setting sun.  In that cleft mirrors and crystals reflect that setting sunlight into the building within.  The walls of the crevasse are part of the manse and the third wall I made of hollow Adamantine tubes of different bores and lengths.  As the wind passes over these tubes more haunting melodies arise, and the tubes glow with essence.  The interior of the manse is a natural amphitheater with the essence focus on the podium in the front.  From the seats any sound can be heard from the podium and no sound from the audience will reach the podium, this is not a magical effect but due tho the masterful construction of the space.  The holder of the Hearthstone is granted three successes on any singing performance roll and three dice bonus on any speaking performance.

Level 3 Earth Manse.  

This squat building is mostly underground.  Beneath the artificial lake there is an underground cave system.  The caves were discovered before the lake flooded.  Pipes were installed and machinery was put in place and the lake created.  The pipes took the water in and purified it and sent it to town on the lake and into the county side for crop irrigation.  The apparatus is still functioning but the exit pipes have been blocked by sediment and debris.  The only things that need to be done are to repair the pipes and place the hearthstone into the socket.  The hearthstone otherwise provides a three dice bonus to all craft rolls.

Level 3 Earth Demesne

Situated in a lonely mountainous spur the region seems devoid of all plant life.  No moss and no lichen grows here and all rain seems to be blown away instead of landing on the rocks.  Snow seems to land elsewhere as well.  Like the effects on the weather, spending time here and meditating allows the person to see their values in a new light.  In game terms, each complete day of meditation in this spot allows the character to refresh restore damaged intimacies on a roll of Compassion + Integrity, with a difficulty of the damage to that intimacy.  Alternatively, with a Conviction + Integrity roll the character may change or alter an intimacy, with a difficulty of the power of the intimacy - damage.  A botch on any of these rolls results in a mental derangement.  

Climate change with photos

Not long ago the First snow fall happened near the middle of October, it rarely stayed.

Sometime in November the snow would begin to stay.

The ice would start to form in December.

It no-longer is true.

Snow, not much ice.
Jan 12

Mid-Winter Ice almost formed.
Feb 10.

Ice Formed, finally
Feb 12

A cold Winter day
March 2nd

Walking trail in misty warm day
March 9

The long view of the trail
March 9

Warmth and the ice is melting
March 20

The Sun Warms the day, melts the ice
March 26

Winter done, early
March 26

My older friends told me stories that the ice was like this, above, mid May in the 1960s.  Do you see how things have changed in 50 years?

Fuck that Shit!!

Warning this is a Shitty topic.

Diet is a difficult thing.  I like to eat well but I crave sugar.  I am really good at making a healthy Breakfast, eggs, cheese, mushrooms, and a variety of vegetables.  The last few days, I have had 13 to 15 different food sources in my breakfast, maybe more.  That is healthy.  Lately I have been getting out and eating at Tim Hortons so I can blog undistracted and to "get out", but my dinner has been lacking.  Last night I cooked pasta and cheese sauce from scratch but previously I have been binging on carbs, sugar to to be precise and it hurt me.

It have me a horrible experience in the bathroom for 24 hours afterwards.  This winter I got sick and I stopped eating to clear out my stomach.  I had the flu and when I stopped eating it took 24 hours to stop the diarrhea.  When I started eating again it took 24 hours for me to defficate.  I knew that it took about the long before, but it was proof.  Most people think that food goes through them much faster.  Maybe for them this is a true statement.  I think it is important to know what your body does and to understand your body and how it reacts to things in your life, like food.  

I write a lot about what my mind does, but people, I feel that people have a taboo on your other biological functions.  Like shitting.  Like when you read a book.  You read about the fantastic meal that people made and had.  You read about how they feel about Robin.  You read about the time they fuck the shit out of Robin and they talk about how good it felt to breathe after a near death experience.  But no one talks about their crap.  Why not?  Because the odor of your shit is really important to the people in your life and what you eat affects that odor.  Also what you eat affects the consistency of your shit and how regular you are and how fast you deliver your mess.  You know what also affects your shit?  The toilet that you use.  I used a lot of toilets last year, about one sit down use a day.  And I am a quick toilet user.  It comes out in one go and if I sit down and reach for the toilet paper I am usually ready to wipe as soon as it is in my hand.  So, when people tell me that I need to flush the toilet half way to prevent clogging, I instantly understand that they need to change their diet and they have no clue.  

Because no one talks about it, everyone assumes that there is nothing wrong with them and how they shit.  Last year I stopped using the bathroom where I lived.  It was because I was eating a lot (because I was very active and needed the food), but still only had one movement a day and that meant a days worth of food waste came out of me in about three seconds.  That meant girth.  And that meant the load was too big to go down the hole in the toilet.  But it was all soft so a plunger could push it down.  But who wants to hear about that?  No one.  We don't talk about shit.  Everyone does it, every animal does it, every multi cellular organism does it similarly.  Mammals push out excrement in two forms logs or pellets, that is a fact. We all do it, so why are we embarrassed about it.  Why did you crinkle your nose when I started talking about it?

Have you even read this far?

The superhumans on my fictitious world Caranus, do not shit.  They need to eat sand every once in a while to clean out their digestive tract and keep it working.  I recognised as a young person that a super race could be universally accepted as superior by not needing to shit.  But no one talks about it

I thought about it I am putting a warning at the top.  Pretty Crappy that I have to do that.

I rolled a Natural 20 on my Sex roll

Adult Subject Matter

I am a little OCD.  It comes from my autism.  And unfortunately sex is one of those things that I am OCD about.  I don't want to be, but it is.  I hate that.  Right now I am in a horrible place. I just had sex and it was really good sex, not completely satisfying for both parties but the best I have had in five years.  I almost came, twice!!  Not a big deal for most people but it is for me.  It was a lot of sex too, I mean hours of it, between two and three hours.  And Kissing, lots of kissing, like three to four hours of it.  And holding hands in public.  The only thing that I will be missing with this girl is going to sleep and waking up with her.  Because she is in an open marriage and she loves her husband.  So, I am her secondary partner.  I might be falling in love with her, but I might not, then again technically if it takes me months to get there or days it would still not change that I "am" falling in love with her.  But what would me in love with this woman mean?  That is the question.  Great sex, sure.  But would it mean that I would become OCD towards her?  I am throwing this out there, because I know what I am getting into and that is the difference between this arrangement and the relationships of the past.  

I KNOW I am geared for monogamy, but I am so horribly bad at it—not because I cheat or any other reason that people are bad at monogamy but bad because I am bad at relationships period, mostly getting in to them.  Could I be geared to Polyamory?  The difference between the two is huge and small.  Really the difference is loving more than one person at the same time.  The change is the last four words, at the same time.  OCD relationships is about only one person and that is it.  I would be hoping that splitting my OCD attention would break it; it might just give me two OCD relationships at the same time.  The REAL problem is that a monogamous OCD relationship really only works in the primary position.  I don't think OCD relationships work very well as secondaries.  Even two or three secondary positions.  I think that OCD relationships require a primary role because of the word Obsessive.

These are likely my fears becoming manifest through my writing.  They will probably not occur, because I am looking into them now, before there is a problem.  The problem is that if I publish this is Natural20 will read this and I don't want to screw this up with ravings of a fearful lunatic.  Because the sex was good enough that it has demolished my internal constructions that sex does not matter really.  I had gotten back into the position that I was in before I slept with MPTR five and a half years ago, that I could live without sex.  Now I can't again.

Porn.  I don't know how other people look at it, just how I look at it.  When I view porn I have to pretend that I am in a relationship with them, otherwise it does not work.  I pretend that the women are my girlfriend and that we are having sex.  I don't pretend that this was our first time, I pretend that I have been in a relationship for weeks or months or years and that it will continue for a long time afterwards.  Message for me is that casual sex does not do it for me and I desire regular sex.  Which is not to say that I cannot have a relationship with Natural20, but it does mean I have to get used to the idea of not seeing her as often as I want to.  But then before I met her, talked to her, I was fine with no sex in my life again.  

I would be fine with the end of porn in my life, if there was something else filling the gap.  I don't want to scare Natural20 away and everything that is in here.  I sometimes fear to let someone know that I masturbate often, more often than a typical teenager.  That it does depend how busy I am and right now I am not busy at all.  I need to find work so that I have less time, but not so little time that I have no time.  I need to find a balance between work, leisure, working on relationships and sleep.  I hope that is the take way for me and Natural20.