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Analysing society

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Nalah affixed the massive shield to her back, the rectangular form large enough for him to fit behind while only needing to crouch slightly. It was mostly ironwood, but the sides and front were metal-plated, so it still weighed a considerable amount. Despite that, the thing’s bulk hardly seemed to be noticed by the blonde-furred female, likely due to the constant construction work she involved herself in. It paired oddly with the long pike she insisted on using, but he couldn’t deny that poking at things while hiding behind a mobile wall sounded like a good idea.
Jax was wearing his new armour, the bulky chest-piece a mirror of his blond-furred pack mate’s. Though he forwent the protection a buckler or likewise would offer, he doubled up on gear. Gauntlets, vambraces, pauldrons, and anything else he could wear to compliment the massive axe he had taken a liking to.
Where Nalah was fitted to look like an apocalypse survivor—her protections limited to her torso, forearms, and shield—the black-furred male resembled a giant, if underfunded, paladin. All he needed now was some religious imagery and a penchant for exalting the qualities of their god. Joseph almost nudged the guy to suggest it for kicks.
On second thought, he decided that Jax absolutely did not need a reason to start yelling about the Human-turned-religious-figure, because there was no way in hell he wouldn’t. There was no telling what he would choose to say, and the Grand Hunter was perfectly happy never knowing.
Having been with the male as long as he had, it would probably involve ‘taming’ females or something else that would leave him groaning for weeks, if not just contemplating another high-dive from the cliff.
Joseph fixed his own equipment, the ‘Wraith armour’ worn over his own thin iron breastplate. He wasn’t thrilled to wear the extra weight, but it beat being mauled by the thing they were heading out to kill. The trips so far had been tolerable, fog and overcast skies keeping the temperature in check, but he didn’t want to go out in this on a hotter day as Summer really kicked back in. He was sweaty enough without baking inside all this crap.
He adjusted the wolf-skull mask, the rest of the hunting party having gotten over the worst of the unease it gave them. Though they’d needed to rotate people out for the sake of fairness, this would be their eighth consecutive scouting. Using the information that Raine and Faye provided, they narrowed down a likely stomping grounds for the creature and were systematically clearing sectors. It might have been discouraging to keep looking after so long, but the occasional marking on trees and the odd moss-wolf corpse tipped them off that they were getting close. There was still another week’s worth of searching left if today wasn’t the day, but somehow he doubted they wouldn’t need that long.
All in all, they numbered six; larger parties were attempted, but their efforts at stealth quickly became pointless between so many trudging through the forest and stopping for breaks. There was a bit of a scare where one of Mi’low’s pack went missing, but the guy had just stopped to relieve himself. Since the discovery was made by someone else knocking him over in the process by mistake, they decided that keeping the number smaller made communication easier. And lowered the amount of grumbling about needing a bath.
Jax, Nalah, two security members, one of the hunters, and him. Sure, grabbing Tel or the Wraiths would have been a bit more useful for cohesion, but they were all busy with things, and he didn’t want to grind everything in the settlement to a halt for nothing if the search turned up empty again. They were more suited to taking out their fellow Lilhun than some monster in the woods, as much as he disliked the thought.
Scarlet was spending a lot of time with Violet and the new Atmo, Faye was spending much of her recovery with the moss-wolves and moss-pup, and Tel was in the process of helping Harrow shore up the few security members that were slated to become snipers. Kaslin was still learning chemistry with Toril, and Raine was helping whoever needed a hand, so that marked off all of his usual accompaniment. He could have taken more of his direct pack, but they all had important things to take care of as well.
Sahari was managing the pack and putting people where people needed to be put, Pan was working with Idee and Heralt to make a line of armour for the whole pack, and Mi’low was...well, Mi’low. He was pretty sure she was unofficially the master of the hunter’s lodge and spent most of her time keeping track of what came in and out of it, while also making sure that everyone got their fair share. It needed to be done with the settlement growing as much as it had, and it kept Mi’low busy enough to stymie the flow of complaints, so he wasn’t about to complain.
They double checked that they had everything that was needed; food, water, arrows, bolts, and some bags to store anything that the snares had caught on the way back. Four ranged and two melee weapons meant that they would be mostly using Jax and Nalah to soak hits if it came down to it, the others peppering it with projectiles. Given that Harrow was insistent on the bear-thing being resistant to anything they could use at a distance, they also carried spare weapons for the ranged users, just in case. Nodding, Joseph gestured to the group finishing up their preparations for the day’s trip.
“A moment, sir?” Scarlet called to him as she approached the gate, the Wraith flanked by Rose and Cobalt. The two Atmo were decked-out in their own armour, which appeared to be almost entirely metal, save for the palm lining the inside for comfort. Each of their six legs were adorned with broad shields, their bases capped off with a flat storage carriage. They looked like someone had a little too much fun testing how much the insects could effortlessly carry and had ended up with sapient hexapedal tanks.
“Only if you explain why those two would look more at home if they had cannons installed on their backs,” he quipped, an expression somewhere between surprised, amused, and plain dumbfounded plastered on his face. The blackish red-furred female smirked for a split-second before resuming her usual servile presentation.
“The young mistress had extended her request for these two to accompany you.”
Joseph tilted his head incredulously. “Violet told you to send them?”
Scarlet nodded, gesturing to the outfitted Atmo. “They have been under her tutelage for some time now, and wish to be of assistance.”
The Grand Hunter snapped his mouth closed when he was about to ask why his daughter would teach them anything that might be useful for fighting a deadly beast. Of course she did; It was one of the first things he did for her. It would have been weirder for her not to pass on what she knew after all the hours she spent either seeing him coach the others, or being coached herself. With the time she had under her belt, she was the local Atmo Close Quarters Combat specialist, and no one else understood how the modified boxing she learned worked with their bodies like she did.
He wore a hesitant expression, shifting his weight to his other leg. “Well, they’ve certainly geared up.”
“It is a product our smith is rather proud of,” the Wraith affirmed confidently.
He exhaled slowly. “Seems a bit much.”
She seemed to be expecting the remark, barely pausing to register what he said before responding. “Your kit wishes you safe, yet understands you would not allow her to accompany you. These two wish to be of assistance.”
To punctuate her point, the two nodded in agreement, walking forward and slinging some of the backpacks onto their carriages. It seemed ‘no’ wasn’t something they were going to accept after Violet had said her piece. He sighed, conceding that they wouldn’t slow the party down with everyone carrying so much weight in equipment, regardless of the bags. They took breaks frequently enough to accommodate the Atmo, so that wouldn’t hinder anything either.
“Fine,” he relented with a wave of his hand. “We’ll take them. Not like they’d hurt anyway. But–” He put a warning into his tone. “–they’re not playing the hero and getting themselves killed. This isn’t going to work if they think any of us dying is still a net positive, got it?”
The two Atmo mimed their understanding, Scarlet replying with a victorious smile. Joseph couldn’t help but bemusedly roll his eyes. The female had taken rather well to baby-sitting, and that seems to have extended to humouring the young Queen’s schemes now. It wasn’t an unwelcome addition to their little sojourn. At least they could haul back any larger game without it tacking hours onto the return trip.
He thanked Scarlet for her trouble before dismissing her, confirming with the group that everything was accounted for, and set off before it grew too late. He wasn’t looking to get caught out in the woods during the night. The Lilhuns might be fine, but he was pretty well blind unless the moon felt generous.
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Jax watched the two Atmo quietly follow on the sides of the group, their heavily armoured forms posing no issues with their naturally soundless movements in the forest. In the den, they would make moderate clacks and clicks as their chitinous legs contacted the ground, but the soft dirt and foliage stifled all but the smallest report of their travel. With Scarlet supervising alongside Violet, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the former Blade had influenced their movement with the goal in mind, though he had never paid much attention to how they walked before to compare.
He had to admit, having them carry the additional equipment was exceedingly useful. He had proposed having the group use the newly acquired platforms on their more arachnid-like abdomen to rest in shifts, but Joseph was quick to insist that the insects were of lesser stamina than even Lilhuns. The phrasing seemed like a comparative insult, but Jax had more than enough experience with the Human to know that he had simply spoken his mind. To him, everyone had sub-par stamina. Training had gone some way to remedy the discrepancy, but the Grand Hunter could still continue for longer than even the most well-conditioned of them.
The black-furred male rolled his shoulders, feeling the heft of his axe shift with the movement. It was an impressive size, the weight well-balanced and its edge sharp. He had once laid it to the ground out of curiosity and confirmed that it was about as tall as Pan from head to haft, though only if she stood to her full height. Regardless of its size, it was still lighter than the armour he chose to don.
Having only really worn leathers or a few sets of ironwood protections, the encumbering prominence of the iron equipment took getting used to. It wasn’t entirely restrictive, but did put a damper on any chances he had of sprinting from danger. That was fine, he supposed, since he was wearing it against a beast he had no experience with. It could very well outrun him regardless, and he would rather have the defences in either case.
Nalah seemed to be doing fine, the large barrier she kept on her back swaying slightly as she walked. She was unhindered by it, her movements barely affected by the bulk, which was reassuring. Joseph, however, seemed to be panting more than usual, the rolling cloud coverage easing as the sun progressively warmed the environment. The fog from earlier meant that it was rather humid, and that seemed to bore no well wishes for the male encased in dark leathers and thick plates. He had even flipped down his hood, the sweat beading on his skin adding a sheen to his visage.
“I liked this better when the sun didn’t exist,” the Human lamented quietly, just loud enough for Jax to hear. The black-furred male chuckled.
“It would be rather dark.”
Joseph glared at him for a moment before rolling his eyes. “I just don’t rank ‘heavily armoured hike through the woods’ high up on my list of things I want to do regularly.”
“I believe that list would be occupied by your mates, no?” he ribbed playfully, a smirk arising when the Grand Hunter shunted his eyes closed in a grimace.
“I hate you.”
“I can see your smile underneath your displeasure, Joseph,” Jax quipped, nudging the male with his elbow, then giving an apologetic smile when his friend almost fell. Joseph sighed, waving Cobalt over and fetching a water-skin from the luggage that the insect was ferrying without breaking stride—though he needed to be careful not to get stepped on.
The Atmo always amused Jax. Be it their passive demeanour hidden by their towering stature, or his interactions with the den-kit, they never failed to be curious people. Having the two that accompanied Volta with them was an unexpected development, but he couldn’t claim to disapprove. If they had been imparted the methods of combat that Violet had cultivated, then there was little worry of them being harmed by naught but perhaps their current target. At least not until there was a better reference of its strength than the single encounter the first-years had so long ago.
At the time, it had smashed pillars and pierced flesh effortlessly, claws proving to be little more than tempting ministrations of tender touch to the thick hide. Jax only had some of the pack’s recount to base the experience off of, but was content to take their word for it. He was, ashamedly, preoccupied taking care of baser needs when the event transpired, so he was woefully unprepared for the eventual encounter. Still, he was afforded the best the settlement had to offer so that he might serve his duty of protecting the Grand Hunter. Harrow would never forgive him if only he returned.
His thoughts were disturbed by Joseph calling for a rest, Jax’s legs thankful for the break from supporting the unusual weight for so long. The Human dispensed rations and water for the pack, the Atmo waiting until everyone else was supplied before accepting their portion. They rested on their base directly, instead of curling their legs beneath them like Jax had become accustomed. Perhaps the armour impeded such, or they wished to remain mobile in the event such was required. Regardless, they blocked what little breeze there was, forcing the Grand Hunter to walk beyond them to enjoy it in the shade. It was short-lived however, as Rose quickly repositioned to stay between the pack and whatever lay beyond their protections.
It was a futile effort, it seemed, because it repeated again twice before Joseph groaned loudly and threw himself atop the carriage to lay back, his legs dangling at the knee. He seemed perfectly content with the unorthodox arrangement, snorting his amusement along with a muttered comment about a ‘taxi.’
The entertaining sight was marred by a distant yelp, snapping the group to attention. Jax and Joseph traded looks, subtle nods and gestures given to move out while remaining quiet. Ignoring his earlier complaints, the Grand Hunter flicked his hood up and donned the mask, drawing his crossbow and readying a bolt. The hunter of the pack mimicked the preparation, the two security members loosely nocking their arrows while Rose, Cobalt, Jax, and Nalah took point.
They proceeded quietly for far longer than the proximity of the noise would have suggested, but marks and gashes upon the trees implied a moving conflict. Thoughts of it being a lost cause quickly became moot as a closer growl and bark shattered the careful silence they had been maintaining.
Motioning for the pack to stop, Joseph waved Jax forward, Nalah approaching the other side. Using the large shield as additional cover, they peered around a particularly thick tree. Locked in combat were two moss-wolves, both attacking a truly massive grey creature.
Twice the Human’s height, half that in width. Four pillars as legs—the muscular trunks sinewy and defined—supported the disturbing hunched figure, the wide base tapering slightly into a thick and extended torso. A singular eye-stalk replaced the head, the ocular organ atop it pitch black and free of any indication of its focus. Four arms with deadly claws parried and sliced the two yellow beasts as they attempted to drive off the predator, a sickeningly large maw gaping to catch any attempts at a lunge. The mouth of the creature almost occupied the entirety of the available surface area upon its front, the jagged bone tools of manduction undulating with the promise of sustenance.
Joseph pulled them back, cursing under his breath as he tried to fight off the tension. From Nalah’s worried expression, it seemed his caution was rather potent, the other members of the group smelling his reaction as well.
“So, what’s the plan, Jax?” the Human whispered, his grip on the crossbow alternating with his fingers stretching across the trigger lest his fidgeting cause a misfire.
“I thought that, with your record, you would wish to tame it for the settlement,” Jax replied while thinking through a plan of action. He was glad that his friend trusted him, but he wished he had known the true scale of the beast prior. Joseph grit his teeth, turning to glance past the tree again with sarcasm pouring out of his response.
“Can’t quite see Winnie-the-woodchipper there playing great with kids.”
“You say that after adopting an Atmo as kit, Grand Hunter,” he returned, nodding to himself when a plan formed. The Human smiled, the banter easing the tension somewhat. “Rose, Cobalt, you two are the most well defended of us. Circle around and drive the beast this way. You should be capable of such without noise, yes?”
The two insects nodded, emptying their luggage behind a tree so as not to lose any of it before disappearing into the trees. The slight glimmer of their iron armour was the only indication of their position through the dense forest. Jax hoped that the beast was not particularly curious about the dimly pulsing glare, nor finished with its current altercation in time to impede the pair.
Satisfied with their progress, he motioned for the two security members to scale a tree and gain a superior vantage point. Their weapons would be able to maintain a more rapid pace of sustained fire at longer ranges. Joseph and the hunter were instructed to hide behind trees nearby, though the Human would need to remain grounded as his lack of claws made scaling the large flora difficult with his equipment.
Finally, Nalah and he positioned themselves much closer, in order to flank the creature as it fled the Atmo and occupy it long enough for the others to bleed it out, if not outright dispose of it.
With the forms of the Atmo peeking through the brush opposite them, Jax raised his axe to signal the start.
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Joseph felt the hammering in his chest, his heart preparing him to fight for his life against the walking abomination that easily outclassed the only other predator that he had experience with. Sure, the moss-wolves were easy to take down once you had equipment and a plan, but that thing screamed danger.
He watched Jax and Nalah set up behind thick trees, their goal being for Jax to hopefully disable a leg or two with the war-axe while Nalah occupied it with the shield. As the two strongest members of his little family, he trusted both to do their job.
As a clusterfuck of animal and torture device, he had no faith in the creature playing along.
Swallowing his hesitation, he adjusted his grip on the crossbow again, mentally tallying his shots and cursing himself for not researching explosives. Sure, Toril didn’t want to be involved in that kind of weapon, but at the moment, the tailless white-furred male could suck it up and make one anyway. Joseph would give his left nut to see how quickly the chemist would make weapons of mass destruction just to annihilate whatever that thing called home.
Jax raised his axe, glinting the sunlight of it towards the Atmo. Receiving the start signal, the two clicked and loosed a deafening screech, the Human’s ears ringing even from this distance.
The beast seemed unperturbed by the noise, though the lack of visible ears may have had something to do with the lacklustre effect. Regardless, it did notice the two armour-clad insects charging at it, and smartly decided to extradite itself from the area. The moss-wolves, however, didn’t quite get the memo, mistaking the advancing assistance as yet another foe to defend themselves from.
He had to say, Violet taught the two well. They flashed their blades out in the same flicker jab that he had shown his daughter, and with an unceremonious squelch, the two bisected canines landed in four pieces, a vibrant green ichor now staining the weapon-like appendages of the Atmo. Undeterred by their first act of violence—as far as he was aware, anyway—they continued herding the beast.
It wasn’t as fast as they might have feared, its quadrupedal gait hindered by its proportions, but it was still quick enough to be damn intimidating. Its arms acted as a counter balance, constantly adjusting this way and that just to keep it stable. That thing was clearly never meant for sprinting, all its mobility being given to the overactive maw that pulsated with the exertion.
He readied his crossbow, the shaking in his hands not ruining his aim against such a large target. He eyeballed the distance between the creature and the ambush point, forcibly moving his finger off the trigger so that he didn’t fire early.
Closer. Come on. Almost.
Now.
Jax wound up like a particularly enthusiastic lumberjack, putting his full body into the rotation. The massive axe swung like a horizontal pendulum striking home with all the finality of a clock tolling midnight. It bit into the front leg of the beast, only sinking a few inches before momentum nearly wretched the weapon from the black-furred male. Luckily, the force and timing was enough to trip it, the creature crashing to the forest floor with a deafening roar of pain.
They could hurt it. That made him feel better.
His relief evaporated as the beast swiftly recovered, hauling itself from the ground faster than he thought possible, but his archers took it for an unspoken signal. Arrows and bolts peppered its thick hide, to no effect—it shrugged off the projectiles like they were nothing more than pine needles, none sinking far enough to gain notable purchase.
Jax hefted his axe for another strike, careful not to over-commit this time. Nalah prodded the beast wherever she could with her pike, the melee weapon sliced and skewered just past the surface of the hide, though not enough to do more than marr. It was, however, enough to gain the attention of the target, the creature swinging two of its four arms to rake across the shield that the blond-furred female held. The iron plating across the front let out an unearthly shriek as claws ripped and crumpled the metal.
Well, fuck.
Nalah was quick to react, treating the shield less as an immovable barrier and more like a slight distance buffer, dodging in and out of range to steal jabs with the polearm. The security members nocked another volley, picking different targets than before. An arrow bounced harmlessly off the black orb of an eye, another finding purchase in what passed for gums in its mouth.
The hint was received; aim for the mouth. Thankfully, that was a large target. Less thankfully, it realized that flashing its teeth was detrimental to its health, slamming the maw closed.
Jax managed another swing, this time into one of the rear legs. It wasn’t as effective as the first strike, but it did warrant a sweeping double back-fist from the creature, scoring Jax’s armour with shallow claw marks as he jumped backwards. Joseph let out a breath as he fired his second shot, only just narrowly missing the sliver of a gap between razor teeth that the enraged attack afforded. It couldn’t keep its mouth shut forever, each frenzied swipe pulling its form enough for glimpses of softer flesh within to appear. The hunter dropped from their tree, darting across to reposition for a wider angle to capitalize on. The creature noticed, lunging forward to eviscerate the easier target.
Joseph blinked as two armoured figures jumped in front of the Lilhun, raising their blades in a tight guard to block the four arms grabbing for a quick meal. The beast recoiled with a thunderous screech, two of its appendages sporting deep gashes that fountained blood, while the others managed to impact above the edged outside of the blades. Rose and Cobalt pressed forward, buying time and space for the hunter to collect themselves and scale up another perch. Taking advantage of its pain, two new arrows ripped through the air, smacking into exposed inner flesh. Two new protrusions joined the first in the mouth, one landing next to the existing projectile, while the other cleared the gateway of serration, driving deeply inside of it.
More flicker jabs and extended straights pushed and cut the beast as it tried to gain distance from the two that wounded it, every retaliatory strike earning it another gash in its grey hide.. Unencumbered by the constant barrage, Nalah thrust into its legs more vigorously, her body leaning into each attack to gain every inch of penetration she could into the muscle and thick hide.
Jax used the chance to score another chopping blow, doubling down on a previous wound to a back leg—striking bone this time, based on the unholy wail the beast uttered. Joseph raised his crossbow to land another shot into its mouth, but the beast flailed wildly to fend off the ambush.
Rose managed to block, Jax lunged backwards, Nalah deflected most of it with what remained of her shield, but Cobalt was caught by a strike, taking the hit to its torso. The Atmo flew backwards, rolling when it landed, the carriage and assorted armoured plates trailing behind it. Rose shifted instantly, covering the direction that their companion had been sent while Jax and Nalah focused on pulling the beast away from the downed combatant.
Joseph’s eyes flicked to the Atmo, waging an internal battle on whether helping the insect would be better or worse for the situation as a whole. He didn’t want to lighten up their assault if it would just mean more injuries, but Cobalt could be in dire need for a patch job. It was hard to tell from where he was.
Cursing, he bolted from his spot, firing off one last round into the gaping maw before clipping the crossbow onto his armour and sliding on his knees in front of Cobalt, healroot hastily retrieved from his pocket.
He paused, sighing in relief when none of the armour bore more than deep gashes, the carapace underneath unblemished by the attack. Cobalt clicked lightly, dazed, but otherwise seeming unhurt. Unlearned in the physiology relevant, he ushered the Atmo to remain out of the fight for fear of concussion or something similar. They could look at the insect back at the base to be sure later.
“Joseph!”
His head spun around at both Jax and Nalah screaming his name, a massive clawed hand sweeping at him—the monster's approach unnoticed while he focused on Cobalt. Lacking a better option, he lunged forward towards the underside of the beast to dodge the swipe, crashing to his shoulder on the dirt below.
The creature raised a leg above Joseph, pounding the earth scant inches from his head as he rolled sideways. Ignoring the kicked up dirt, he brought his fist to the underside of the beast, flicking the release on his bracer.
Blood spouted from the newly formed wound, the blade breaking at the mechanism as the massive animal lurched in pain, Joseph rolling out of the way of another attempted trampling. He scrambled to his feet, feeling the wind of another strike narrowly missing him.
Yeah, that would probably kill him.
Luckily, the injuries renewed the desire to flee in the monstrosity, the group of attackers proving too dangerous to continue challenging. It stumbled away from them, sparing Cobalt from its panicked trudging. Jax and Nalah started to run towards him, worry evident in their eyes, but he barked for them to finish it, redirecting the two to keep the pressure going. He didn’t want to mention the pain in the arm from where the bracer hitched. It didn’t feel broken, and thus was irrelevant.
Pressure applied, the grey beast picked a random direction free of opponents to escape, ignorant of the waiting security. When it was too close for them to shoot into its mouth at a decent angle, they slung the bows over their shoulders and drew the swords they had been afforded, patiently waiting with the blades turned down.
It passed below them, the two Lilhuns dropping from the branches to put their full weight into the plunging blades. Both landed on the large target, one sword sinking deep into a shoulder, while the other managed to pierce one of its hip joints. The beast spun haphazardly to dislodge the ‘new’ threats, both security members kicking off and finding new trees to set up in.
Whatever damage was actually done, it had lost the use of an arm, and its gait shifted awkwardly as the blade lodged in its hip worked more harm with each shambling step.. Emboldened, Jax picked up the pace, struggling to position himself with the amount of metal he wore. Ducking another swipe of its claws, he saw his chance and swung, pivoting with his axe as a counter weight. For the third time, his axe blade found the wound in its leg, adding a sickening crunch as the bone snapped from the impact.
The creature swung wildly, forced to favour its two remaining good legs, and the only other leg that could still support at least some of its weight. It was unstable now, the hunched figure swaying while unmoving. Unable to run, it decided to go down with as many of them as it could.
Rose caught up with the attack, drawing attention from the comparatively squishy Nalah as the blond-furred female deflected a wayward swing with her shield. The once iron-plated ironwood now sporting little more than jagged scraps of metal atop its silver wooden structure, a series of deep gouges marring the surface. Two lunging thrusts with the pike bit flesh, drawing new blood from the beast.
Joseph loaded his crossbow, getting off two bolts, but not managing to keep it steady enough to hit anything of use, his arm faltering under the weight of the weapon. Cursing, he decided to flank the beast and try his luck with the other bracer. If nothing else, the force in which the blade deployed was enough to pierce the thick hide, and the others were doing a good job of distracting it.
The red armoured Atmo let loose a series of directed swings, the fifth severing an arm in motion, the flying appendage forcing Nalah to raise her shield to block the unorthodox projectile. The female was sent sprawling from the weight of the impact, but the beast was too busy voicing its agony to take advantage of it. Jax worked another two chops into the broad legs, but neither managed to incapacitate it any more, and the prolonged exertion was slowing his reflexes.
As if cued into his waning energy, the beast flung Jax with another strike, the hunter of the group sinking a bolt deep into the cavernous flesh of its mouth to prevent an attempt at following up.
Joseph roared, desperate to finish it off before the creature could do the same to his downed pack. He sprinted at the monster's back and slid underneath it with as much speed as he could muster. Throwing his fist into the passing undercarriage, he let the deployed blade leave a long gash in its wake.
The grey monster lost its ability to stand, torn tendons, blood loss, and inflicted injuries taking their toll. The Grand Hunter kicked off his knees to fling himself out of the way of the collapsing figure, grimacing as the remaining bracer proved unable to support the abuse he had put it through. He looked back at the beast, the flailing body failing to right itself as teeth did little more than gouge dirt, its back exposed. Rose approached, raising their blades together and plunging it through the body over and over until it stopped moving.
Exhausted, the Atmo dropped where it was, breathing heavily. Joseph’s instinct to yell their victory was delayed as he hurried over to Jax and Nalah to confirm he didn't need to bring back bad news. Nalah seemed fine, if a bit sore from hitting the dirt and rolling, while Jax just asked to lay down when he heard that everything was over. Cobalt came over to the group, the armour that had come off collected atop the carriage it had managed to loosely affix to its base.
It was light, a chuckle originating from the Human as he slumped to the ground against a tree, but soon the entire group was roaring with laughter as victory settled in their minds. The two security members helped the hunter begin disassembling the beast, their contribution to the fight leaving them with more energy than the rest. They hadn’t been slacking off, that much was certain. The number of arrows jammed into the maw of the thing would have guaranteed a few extra seconds of survival and chances to escape if one of them had been forcibly tossed into there, and it had caused enough pause for the rest of them to get in a few hits up close.
Joseph rested across from Jax and Nalah, letting his heart rate slow from the rapid pace it had been pinned to since the start of the conflict. His arm continued its protests, but from the amount of movement he still had, he guessed that he had just strained the elbow. A few days taking it easy should straighten that right up.
Once the active members were about half way through processing the creature for hide and meat, Cobalt approached him, a mimed request for assistance putting their armour back on being redirected to Nalah since he doubted he could lift the damn pieces without hurting himself at the moment. She obliged, getting the blue Atmo back in full attire, though it took a while.
Rose stood first, stopping over to allow the hunter to place collected bits and pieces onto the carriage before securing it with whatever they could make due. A security member gathered the moss-wolf corpses for a similar treatment. Waste not, want not, he supposed.
Rose ended up carrying most of their spoils. When he was about to ask why, he, Jax, and Nalah were dragged to Cobalt and hefted onto the carriage. A series of confused questions revealed that the rest wanted to head back before it started getting dark, and it was pretty obvious who was the most exhausted of them. Lacking the will or energy to argue it, he flopped back on the Atmo as the trees passed them by, Nalah resting her legs across him as her head sat on Jax’s lap. The black-furred male didn’t so much as smirk, so it was clear he had pushed himself too far to quip about the arrangement as he laid down.
“The next time you wish to exhaust me this much, Joseph,” the Head of Security started after a long while of silence, tiredness in his voice, “I would prefer it to involve my mate and a bed.”
The Human snorted, closing his eyes and enjoying the lack of walking as the surprisingly stable Atmo carried the three of them. “Fuck off, Jax.”
“Of course, Grand Hunter.”
Next
A/N: Patreon is fixed!... aka new one cuz problems with the last. Check it out to support the story, get AI character art every now and then, or even preview sections of chapters as i write them! (aka, before kieve gets to fix them :D)

Hi all,
unfortunately I can't open and work on projects that use MPC Software as AU/Component. I always get this message in Logic and it crashes:
"An Audio Unit plug-in reported a problem which might cause the system to become unstable. Please quit and restart Logic Pro."
The same message pops up when I open a new project in Logic Pro and try to load the MPC AU/Component.
Only when I activate Logic's Rosetta mode, the plugin loads. But the plugin worked in previous versions of Logic without rosetta mode. And this is not a solution for me, because some other plugins do not work in rosetta mode.
Does anyone have similar problems since the latest version(s)?
Thank you!
PS: I had already contacted Akai support and described the same problem in AKAI/MPC communities a few days ago, but so far there has been no response.
https://preview.redd.it/o2jtb2oyoq4b1.png?width=1314&format=png&auto=webp&s=37a528972b32509b3bc9b9bfa25b4601469ca781

Hi all,
unfortunately I can't open and work on projects that use MPC Software as AU/Component. I always get this message in Logic and it crashes:
"An Audio Unit plug-in reported a problem which might cause the system to become unstable. Please quit and restart Logic Pro."
The same message pops up when I open a new project in Logic Pro and try to load the MPC AU/Component.
Only when I activate Logic's Rosetta mode, the plugin loads. But the plugin worked in previous versions of Logic without Rosetta mode. And this is not a solution for me, because some other plugins do not work in Rosetta mode.
Does anyone have similar problems since the latest version(s)?
Thank you!
PS: I have already contacted Akai support and described the same problem in AKAI/MPC communities a few days ago, but so far there has been no response.
https://preview.redd.it/zlvw8b2qnq4b1.png?width=1314&format=png&auto=webp&s=dbe989953a8a9f14ff3d8ec4fff51f1856ff142b

The other day, Firefox randomly said it was using 170,000,000,000 gigabytes of space, and then crashed and refused to open. And then I couldn't save files on my computer. And then when I tried to restart my computer, it wouldn't start up again... It took several attempts at doing stuff in safe mode, and an error saying that my harddrive really was too full to do literally anything, before I got things mostly in working order again. I got some help and eventually I got things at least mostly fixed, but Firefox would still just immediately crash if I opened it. Did a scan with ccleaner and a malware-checker, and Firefox still wouldn't open, and only a keygen thing was found.
I thought "Okay, let's just uninstall/reinstall"-- thinking that it would ask me about saving my bookmarks/cookies before doing so on the uninstaller. I did try the "refresh", which also just opened up the firefox crash reporter, so I just went to the uninstall. However, I thought it would still save my bookmarks and stuff somewhere-- it just went straight to the complete uninstall. I looked around at other recovery options, none of which were the thing I was looking for. I saw that one of the refresh-attempts did make an "old firefox data" folder-- but the bookmarks thing there was empty.
So I wanted to ask, is there any recovering this stuff? Or am I just boned out of a number of years of bookmarks?

Here are some of the top crypto currency news stories for today, June 7, 2023:
Bitcoin (BTC) Price Falls Below $20,000 for First Time Since December 2020. The price of Bitcoin fell below $20,000 for the first time since December 2020, as the broader crypto market continued to sell off. BTC is currently trading at $19,500, down 20% in the past 24 hours.
Ethereum (ETH) Price Falls Below $1,000 for First Time Since January 2021. The price of Ethereum also fell below $1,000 for the first time since January 2021, as the sell-off in the crypto market intensified. ETH is currently trading at $950, down 25% in the past 24 hours.
Crypto Lender Celsius Network Pauses Withdrawals, Swaps, and Transfers. Crypto lender Celsius Network has paused withdrawals, swaps, and transfers on its platform, citing "extreme market conditions." The move has sent shockwaves through the crypto community, as Celsius is one of the largest crypto lenders in the world.
Crypto Exchange Binance to Stop Trading in Iran. Crypto exchange Binance has announced that it will stop trading in Iran, in compliance with new sanctions imposed by the United States. The move comes as the US government has been cracking down on Iran's crypto industry.
Crypto Firm Three Arrows Capital Files for Bankruptcy. Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has filed for bankruptcy in the United States, becoming the latest casualty of the crypto market crash. The firm is reportedly facing $400 million in debt.
These are just a few of the top crypto currency news stories for today. For more news and updates, please visit our website or follow us on social media.

There's some weird shit going on in the world right now, "Soft disclosure" as they call it has been going on since Tom Delonge's (Yes, from Blink 182) founded To The Stars Academy which leaked the Tic Tac UFO. What was so important about that is that same UFO appears in a ton of UFO stories that were previously dismissed as nuttiness.
More recently, investigative reporter Jeremy Corbell revealed a two-year investigation on a triangular UFO photographed and seen clearly by 50 people flying over a marine base in the Mojave desert.
This actually has similarities with the Rendelsham Forest Incident in Sufolk, England. A major parallel seems to be that the UFOs appear close to either big bodies of water or nuclear sites like the Mojave desert and Rendelsham.
Some time ago the New York Times reported about there being a warehouse somewhere in Vegas that houses materials gathered from crashed UFOs, that coupled with an whistle-blower now saying that the US has retrieved a craft of non-human origin and that it's on an arms race with China to reverse-engineer the crafts.
George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell would be great guests for the pod. Think about it, if all this shit turns out to be true, you want people like Joe Rogan or Tucker at the forefront of it?

Link to the master post
https://www.reddit.com/CFB/comments/13rssrf/bowls\_and\_the\_race\_for\_the\_mythical\_national/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

Setting the Stage

​

Team	Record	AP	Coaches
Nebraska	12-0	1 (51)	1 (31)
Texas	11-0	2 (3)	2 (3)
Auburn	10-1	3	3
Illinois	10-1	4	5
Miami	10-1	5	4
SMU	10-1	6	6

​
Important games and other notes

• August 29th: Preseason #1 Nebraska and #4 Penn St were each granted an extra regular season game to play in the inaugural Kickoff Classic. The Huskers got revenge on the Nittany Lions with a 44-6 thrashing.
• September 10th: BYU lost its season opener to Baylor, 36-40. They wouldn't lose another
• September 10th: Illinois lost it's season opener to Missouri, 18-28. The Illini would run the table the rest of the year (including beating 3 top 10 teams in 5 weeks) to secure a B1G title and Rose Bowl berth.
• September 16th: unranked Miami lost its season opener to #16 Florida (in Gainesville), 3-28.
• September 17th: #3 Texas took down #5 Auburn 7-20 in Auburn. Both teams would win the rest of their regular season games from here.
• September 24th: Miami waxed #13 Notre Dame, and entered the polls for the first time as a result.
• October 29th: #2 Texas defeated #9 SMU 15-12. This would prove to be a de facto conference title in favor of Texas

Five teams entered the bowl season with national title hopes. Texas and Nebraska stood as the only two unbeaten, but as SWC and Big 8 conference champs, were tied to the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl and couldn't play for a de facto national title. Despite both being unbeaten, Nebraska was a heavy favorite to claim a consensus national title, having spent every week of the season being #1 in each poll. Waiting in the wings were #3 SEC champ Auburn who was heading to the Sugar, and #4/5 Illinois who was heading to the Rose bowl, meaning the top 4 teams in the AP were all heading to different bowls. Independent #5/4 Miami crashed the blue blood party and was paired up in the Orange bowl vs Nebraska.
​

The Bowls

Cotton Bowl #2 Texas vs #7 Georgia (January 2nd, 1:30pm EST)
The Longhorns path was simple . . . beat Georgia, then tune into to the Orange Bowl and root for Miami to pull off the upset, which would make them consensus national champions. The upset minded Bulldogs had other plans. It was a defensive slug fest, with the teams tied 3-3 at the half. The Horns managed two 3rd quarter field goals to lead 9-3 heading into the 4th. Texas muffed a punt in their own red zone late in the 4th and Georgia capitalized with a a 17 yard touchdown run by QB John Lastinger to deliver the Dawgs to an eventual 10-9 upset. Texas' title hopes were officially gone, while Auburn fans probably shouted "SEC! SEC!" as their conference rival's upset kept their national title hopes alive.
​
Rose Bowl #2 Illinois vs Unranked UCLA
Illinois spent all of September unranked, before shocking college football, becoming the first team in Big 10 history go 9-0 in their conference slate. They had a slim chance at a national title, needing Nebraska, Auburn, and Texas to all lose their bowl games. Additionally they would need the pollsters to give them more 1st place votes than Miami, which wouldn't be ideal since Miami would have the better bowl win. In any regard, unranked UCLA proved they didn't belong in the conversation in the first place. The Bruins raced out to a 28-3 first half lead and continued to pile it on in the 2nd half, in a 45-9 route. Illinois finished the game with 0 rushing yards.
​
Sugar Bowl #3 Auburn vs #8 Michigan (January 2nd, 8pm EST)
Auburn entered the Sugar bowl knowing Texas lost the Cotton, but now needed to take care of business and Miami to do the same in the Orange bowl, which kicked off around the same time. If those two things happened, it was assumed the voters would elevate them to #1 in the final polls. Michigan made them earn it. The Wolverines scored a TD in the first and led 7-0 at the half. Auburn used its rushing attack, led by the one and only, Bo Jackson, and its kicking game to claw back in it. Trailing 6-7 with 23 seconds left, Auburn kicker Del Greco made a 19 yard chip shot to deliver the Tigers to a 9-7 victory. I imagine they quickly looked for the nearest TV or radio to see what the Orange bowl result was to see if they're championship hopes were still alive.
​
Orange Bowl: #1 Nebraska vs #4/5 Miami (January 2nd, 8PM EST)
Tom Osborne was on the precipice of his first national championship as the Huskers head coach. As the #1 team in each poll since the preseason, all the Huskers needed to do was take care of 11 point underdog Miami, in their home stadium and they're your national champs. However, the Hurricanes had other plans. In what is considered one of the best bowl games of all time, it would become a game huge momentum swings. The Canes stunned Nebraska by racing out to a 17-0 1st quarter lead. The Huskers rallied with 14 in the 2nd, one coming off a trick play known as the 'fumblerooski, and then a field goal in the 3rd to tie it at 17. Miami countered again with two 3rd quarter TDs to lead 31-17. Then the Huskers rallied again with two 4th quarter touchdowns. The 2nd TD came on 4th and 8 from the Miami 24. With :48 seconds left to go in the season, three teams' championship hopes (Nebraska, Miami, and Auburn) hung in the balance. Tom Osborne had a decision to make: kick for the tie or go for 2 for the win. Thanks to Texas' earlier loss, in the Cotton bowl, a tie would be good enough for the pollster to vote Nebraska a consensus #1 as college football's only unbeaten. In a decision that would go down in both Husker and college football lore, Osborne elected to go for two to win win the game. Turner's pass to Jeff Smith in the end zone was batted away by Miami's Kenny Calhoun. The Canes pulled off the shocking upset 31-30, and put the college football world on notice as a new dynasty was born.

Final Results

​

Team	record	AP	Coaches
Miami	11-1	1 (47.5)	1 (30)
Nebraska	12-1	2 (4.5)	2 (6)
Auburn	11-1	3 (7)	3 (4)
Georgia	10-1-1	4	4
Texas	11-1	5	5 (1)

As a husker fan, this is a heart breaker, even if it occurred 5 years before I was born. Had they gotten the conversion, I'd argue this team would be considered on par with the 1995 team. Miami's monumental upset leapfrogged them from #4/5 in the polls to their 1st consensus national championship, and as we'll later see, that was only the beginning. This came much to the dismay of Auburn, who played arguably the toughest schedule in the nation, which included wins over #4 Georgia, #6 Florida (who beat Miami handily), and #8 Michigan. In fact, the Tigers didn't even jump Nebraska, who still received 1st place votes in each poll despite the loss. College football's lack of playoff or sanctioned national championship game was maddening to some but I have to be honest, I think I like the chaos and controversy better. That's what college football is (or at least was) all about.
​
Sources and other info
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_NCAA_Division_I-A_football_season
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_NCAA_Division_I-A_football_rankings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoNs0mdKAO8 (the end of the Orange Bowl)

Just installed the new beta. So far I've found one serious flaw, Share doesn't work across all apps. Crashes. But the really silly bug I've found is that the clock is off by exactly ONE minute. I haven't seen a silly bug like this since the early Android versions 1 through 3. This is my first attempt at using beta 14, since I read all the nasty stuff about betas 1 and 2. I tried to send a bug report for the Share issue, but that seems to be nonfunctional too. Things seem to be out of control at Google right now. Oh well, I can live with the serious and the silly for a month or two. 🫤
UPDATE: I discovered that all the automatic settings were turned off. Turning them back on fixed the issue. Odd that the installation of the beta defaulted everything to 'off'.

The way I see it, if you don’t notice that I exist, then I’m doing my job correctly.
​
My name is Ben McFarlane and I work as a municipal sewer inspector in the town of Tevam Sound, Ontario. It's not the most glamorous job, but hey, somebody's got to do it and it puts food on the table.
​
You'd probably think that working as a sewer inspector isn't that exciting… and yeah, for the most part you'd be right. Most of the time, all I'm doing is checking the pipes for damage. Unless there’s a reason for me to investigate a certain area, most of what I do is routine inspection, which helps ensure that the sewers remain in good working order. Trust me, nobody wants to see what happens when they aren’t.
​
Thankfully, a lot of what I do can be done without me needing to crawl through pipes. I can use a small camera to help me do the inspection. But with some of the larger pipes and cisterns, I need to actually go inside and take a look.
​
It’s never the best part of my day, but like I said before: somebody’s got to do it.
​
Going down into the bigger tunnels is always a little unnerving. Part of it is the claustrophobic atmosphere and part of it is the knowledge that you’re basically standing in a river of literal human waste. I can deal with it now, but back when I first started the smell alone was darn near impossible to deal with.
​
Ask most sanitation workers and I'm sure they'll have stories about what they've found in the sewers before. Heck, most of it isn't even stuff that people flush down the toilet. It's the stuff that people drop down manhole covers, or the stuff that gets washed into the sewers by the rain. Dead animals are surprisingly common, as are kids toys. I found an entire bicycle in the sewer once and I've got a buddy who found a loaded gun down there! Someone probably thought they'd get rid of it by just tossing it in the sewer.
​
Someone was wrong.
​
But of all the strange things I've experienced during my time working in the sewers… none of it compares to the stuff I see in the pipes on the southeast side of town.
​
The things down there… I don't usually like to talk about them. Heck, I might not even be legally allowed to talk about them. I guess we'll find out, won't we? I've had a few drinks tonight and I'm feeling particularly chatty. So why not spill the beans? Hey, maybe someone out there will tell me something I don’t already know.
​
I’d been on the job for about a year or so before getting sent to the southeast side of town. It’s closer to the lake and the downtown area, so there’s some deeper pipes there. I’d always figured that that was the reason they only really ever sent certain people down there. I’d heard that those tunnels were old and a little labyrinthian. Anyone who didn’t know what they were doing could easily get lost.
​
But after we got hit with a particularly nasty rain storm back in summer of 2013, they needed to send someone down to check on some sensors and I just so happened to be one of the guys who was available.
​
A bad rain storm can push a sewer system to its limit, so it wasn’t really that surprising that we’d gotten that kind of call and at the time, I didn’t think that there was anything that strange about it. My supervisor told me to head on down toward the pumphouse on the southwest side of town like it was any other priority inspection, and I went along with no questions asked. It was a few streets away from downtown. I’d seen it before but never had a reason to go inside up until then.
​
I was working with a couple of other newbies at the time, a guy by the name of Stewart Long who’d only been on the job for a round three months or so, and another guy by the name of Tomas Opunui who’d started around the same time that I had.
​
We’d arrived at the pumphouse, and when we got there we noticed another team waiting on us. This wasn’t too shocking either. Depending on the size of the job, they might’ve sent some other guys in to help us handle it.
​
The guy in charge was an older man who looked to be pushing sixty. He had sort of a ‘Santa Claus on summer vacation’ look, with white hair, a short white beard, a big beer belly and a no nonsense expression.
​
He watched us get out of his truck with a look of stern disapproval, before huffing and trudging over to us.
“Where’s the usual fellas?” He asked.
“I dunno, out. They called us,” I replied.
​
He didn’t seem to like that answer but didn’t say anything in response to it.
“You ever worked on the southeast approach channel before?” He asked.
“Yeah, we’ve been in the ones on the north side of town,” I said.
“That’s not what I asked, kid. You ever worked in this one before?”
​
Something about the way he asked this question struck me as a little odd. I’d worked in an approach channel before. I knew the drill. What did it matter which one I’d worked in?
​
For the unenlightened, an approach channel is a cistern filled with wastewater. They feed into a deep tunnel which feeds into a water treatment plant and they’re considered to be fairly dangerous, due to their depth (if you fall off the ladder on your way down, you’re in for a long drop into a biohazardous lake unless you’re properly tethered) and the harmful gasses that can accumulate in them. Standard operating procedure is to always test the air before entering one just to make sure that it’s even safe to breathe down there.
​
Being reckless while going into an approach channel is a recipe for disaster, and I would have understood if the old man was concerned about us not having dealt with one before. But the way he spoke to us implied that this one was different somehow, which didn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense to me.
“What’s the difference?” I asked. “Same procedure, right?”
“No, not the same procedure. We need people experienced with this approach channel. These tunnels are a little different than what you’re used to.
“Look, the boss sent us here. So I’m sure we’ll manage,” Tomas said. “You can show us what we need to know.”
​
The Old Man didn’t respond to him. He just shook his head and turned away.
“I’m gonna call this in and clear it with the boss first. You three, don’t move until I get back.”
I traded a look with both Tomas and Long as the Old Man trudged away. He said something to the two guys who were with him, before getting back into his truck to make a call.
​
Part of me was obliged to try and just get to work. But looking at the other two guys that the Old Man had with him, I had a feeling that they’d try to stop me. One of them, another older guy with a receding hairline and a bushy moustache was watching us like a hawk.
​
So we waited.
​
After a few minutes, the Old Man got out of his truck again, said something to his buddy with the mustache and trudged back over to us.
“Bad news, fellas. Looks like our usual company’s retired… guess you’re the replacement.”
“So we can get to work?” I asked.
“Yeah. We can get to work,” The Old Man said. “Come on, let’s get going.”
​
With that, he turned and led us into the pumphouse.
“Suppose I might as well introduce myself. Names Troy. My colleagues here are Craig and Peter.”
He gestured to the two men who were with him, Mr. Moustache (who I assumed was Craig) and the other guy, who looked to be in his mid thirties and had sunken eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in a few days. The one who I assumed was Craig just gave us a nod, while the guy I figured was Peter gave a lazy half wave before they followed us into the pumphouse.
“So if you don’t mind my asking, what’s so special about this channel?” I asked.
“I guess you’ll be seeing for yourself soon enough,” Troy replied as he started down a set of stairs. “The guys you’re replacing… well, guy… a fella named Tom… he always had a set of rules for working down here. He passed ‘em on to me and Craig when we started. We’ve passed ‘em on to Peter. Guess it’s time we passed ‘em on to you too.”
​
“Rules?” I asked, “What kind of rules?”
“The kind you listen very, very closely to, kid.”Troy looked back at me, before his eyes shifted to Tomas and Long behind me.
“Very, very closely.”
He descended the rest of the way down the stairs, where there was a hatch in the concrete floor beneath us, along with a large locker on the far side of the room.
​
“Rule number one,” Troy began. “You don’t enter this part of the sewers alone. You stay in a group of at least three to four at all times. No more, no less. Too many and it slows you down. Too few, and you might not come back at all.”
He trailed off, watching as Craig cracked open the hatch to test the air inside.
​
“Rule number two: You do not enter this part of the sewers without a gun and a radio.”
He opened the locker on the far side of the room and I was taken aback to see a collection of several handguns inside, along with boxes of ammunition and one shotgun in amongst the usual PPE.
Troy clipped one of the guns to his belt, along with one of the radios, before handing a pair off to Peter and looking over at us.
​
“Who’s taking it?” He asked.
“Whoa, just hold up for a minute!” Long interjected, “What the hell is down there?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Troy replied. “Hate to say it but it ain’t our job to know. I leave that to someone else. Our job is to follow the rules. You follow them, and you’ll be fine.”
Long seemed skeptical, but I looked at the gun in Troy’s hand and took it. I wasn’t sure if he was having a laugh with us or not, but I was there to do a job and I intended to do it.
​
Troy gave me a quiet nod, before thrusting the second gun over to Long. He didn’t seem to happy to get it.
“Are we gonna have to use these?” He asked.
“Not if you do as I say, you won’t. Rule 3: If you see a pipe or a tunnel with heavy spiderwebs, don’t go down it. Doesn’t matter if that’s where the sensor is. You make a note of it, report it to your supervisor and leave it alone.”
​
Spiderwebs? What the hell was he talking about?
“Rule 4: If you find a body… and odds are, you will find a body, don’t touch it. Don’t try to move it. Hell, don’t even get close to it. And don’t waste the supervisors time reporting it. Only time the bodies get reported is when they’re human.”
“I’m sorry, you’ve been finding human bodies down there?” I asked.
“Rarely,” He replied. “But it’s been known to happen. And if we do find one… the same rules apply. Don’t approach it. Don’t touch it. Stay as far away as possible.”
​
I could see some of the color draining from Long’s face.
“Rule 5: If you see anyone else down there, you are not to interact with them. You do not follow them if they try to lead you somewhere, if they ask you for help, you do not help them. I don’t care if they’re crying and begging. You leave them alone. You report it to your supervisor.”
“There are people down there?” I asked.
“Normally, no. Far as I know, Tom only ever ran into a couple during his career. I’ve only ever seen one. Like I said, best to leave them alone.”
​
“Why?” I asked, “If there’s someone stuck down there, we have an obligation to help them!”
“That would be very ill advised,” Troy said. “You don’t want to anger the things that are down there… which leads me to rule 6: Avoid killing anything you come across down there. They’re not yours to kill. And if you have absolutely no choice, if you have to break that rule for the sake of self defense, then we leave immediately. That’s rule number 7.”
​
“Air’s safe down there,” Craig said, interrupting our conversation.
“Good. Let’s get suited up, then. Oh… and rule 8. Final rule. If anything happens to any member of our team, we leave immediately. We don’t go after them. We don’t try to help them. We leave immediately. Is that clear? I don’t care if it’s me, begging you for help. You leave me behind.”
​
Long and I remained silent, neither of us entirely sure how to react to this or even what to say. Troy had made it sound as if we were about to descend into a level of hell. I couldn’t imagine what the hell could possibly be down there to elicit a list of rules like that, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to find out either!
“Well? You fellas getting ready or not?” Troy asked impatiently as he put on his PPE. “The quicker we get down there, the quicker we can get out again!”
​
“If this is so dangerous, why are they sending us?” Long asked, “Shouldn’t they be sending… I dunno, the cops or something?”
“They tolerate us being down there, so long as we don’t disturb them. They wouldn’t be so forgiving toward the local police,” Troy replied. “Listen, kid. Obey the rules and you’ll be fine, got that? We’ve been doing this for years without any problems. You keep your head on your shoulders, you do what we say and you go home safe. Alright?”
​
Long still didn’t seem convinced, but I did. By this point, I was morbidly curious about exactly what was down there… and Troy’s assurance that they’d come out unscathed before did set me at ease a little bit. These rules sounded kinda scary, but what could realistically go wrong? With Troy keeping us in line, everything would probably be fine and besides, I still wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t all some sort of elaborate prank the old man was pulling. I grabbed myself a set of PPE and got ready and after a moments hesitation, Long did the same.
​
When we were ready, Craig opened up the hatch in the floor, and Tomas helped get us tethered so that we wouldn’t plummet down into the waters below if we slipped on the ladder, then we finally began our descent.
​
Troy went first, climbing down the ladder and into the darkness below. I went second, followed by Peter and followed by Long.
​
We climbed down into the approach channel in relative silence, only really speaking again once we made it to the bottom of the ladder.
​
Troy helped me get untethered, before doing the same for Peter and Long as they reached the bottom, and while he did that I got my first look at the dreaded southeast approach channel. I can’t say that there was a heck of a lot to see. The walls were boxy and flat, and the dirty wastewater trickled over my boots and into the pipe sending it even deeper through the sewer system.
​
The sensors should have been mounted on the ceiling, and I traced the black conduit line with my flashlight as I searched for the sensor they connected to. Peter and Long stayed back as Tomas and Craig lowered our tools down after us, while Troy came up behind me.
“Should be quick work…” He noted, “Rain doesn’t seem to have done much in here. Water level is still fairly low.”
​
I saw his flashlight shift upward toward the ceiling before he spotted the sensor. He trudged through the water to get closer to it, and I followed him.
“No external damage,” I noted. “Conduit lines look good too.”
“Yeah, we’ll run our tests and get out of here,” Troy said. “Approach channel is usually pretty safe… usually.”
“Usually?” I asked, and Troy pointed his flashlight up toward a set of silky spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling a few feet behind the sensor.
​
“They don’t typically come up here… but every now and then you might find some proof of some young ones, trying to get into the pumphouse.”
I looked over at him.
“They try to break into the pumphouse?” I asked, “Did they ever get in?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard of. Can’t imagine they’d stay long if they did. Nothing to eat in there.”
“What exactly are they?” I asked, “And don’t you tell me that’s not for us to know. You’ve seen them, right? What do they look like?”
​
Troy had started to answer, when suddenly I heard Long screaming and swearing up a storm. Both of us turned to look, just in time to see something large skittering up the wall beside him. I only caught a brief glimpse of it, but it seemed to be roughly the size of a dog with more legs than I could count. Long stared at it with wide, horrified eyes as he fumbled with his gun, before pulling it free.
​
I saw Troy’s eyes widen before Long fired five times. Only one or two of the bullets actually hit the target. I heard Peter cry out in pain and grab at his arm before falling and whatever it was that Long had actually been shooting at collapsed into the shallow water, its pale body twitching violently.
“What did you just do?!” Troy demanded, running over to Peter’s side.
“I-it was coming for me!” Long protested, before noticing what he’d done to Peter. I saw his eyes widen in horror.
“Oh no… no, no, no… I didn’t…”
“Rule 6! You don’t kill anything down here! You leave them alone and they leave you alone!” Troy roared, before his attention returned to Peter. “How bad is it?”
​
“J-just a scratch, boss… I think I got hit by the ricochet,” Peter said, as Troy inspected his wound. I’ve never seen a gunshot wound before, but there was a lot of blood for it to just be a scratch.
“We’ll get you topside,” Troy said. “And come back down tomorrow with someone who knows how to follow rules!”
​
He shot Long a death glare before his radio crackled to life.
“Troy, everything good down there?” Craig asked.
“No, no it isn’t. One of the newbies got jumpy, shot at a centipede.” He huffed, “Put a hole in Peter in the process. Think you can reel him back up?”
“Yeah, sure thing. Hook him up. Tomas and I will bring him topside.”
​
Troy quietly hooked Peter up to the line, before helping him onto the ladder.
“You take it easy on the way up, and we’ll get that checked out,” He promised.
“Thanks boss,” Peter said quietly.
Troy’s attention returned to Long next, as he fixed him in a death glare.
“You, up the ladder behind him. And you…” He looked at me, his expression softening just a little.
“Behind him. I’ll go up last.”
​
Peter started to meekly climb the ladder, although it seemed like Craig and Tomas were doing most of the work, hoisting him up rung by rung. Once he’d made it part of the way up, Long started to hook himself up to climb behind him. Although before he could hook himself in, I saw him pause for a moment, staring at Troy.
“What is it?” Troy asked, before pausing.
​
Long craned his neck a little, his hand moving down to his gun again… and it was then that both Troy and I realized that he hadn’t been looking at Troy. He’d been looking at what was behind him.
​
I only saw a shadow, perched on the roof of the tunnel. But that was all that Long needed to see before he started shooting again.
“DON’T!”
But by the time Troy had gotten the word out, that trigger happy idiot had already started shooting again and this time, the thing that came for him didn’t drop dead.
​
Instead, it launched itself off of the ceiling of the tunnel, crashing into the ground a few feet away from me.
“WAIT!” Troy tried to protest before the thing in front of us knocked him aside, dashing him against the wall. Long scrambled away, retreating deeper into the tunnel while Peter frantically tried to unholster his gun.
“Troy? Troy, what’s going on down there?” I heard Craig calling over the radio, “Troy? Anyone, respond!”
​
The shape in front of us turned, looking over at me and Long. Eight eyes shone in the darkness and though I could only see the shadow of the creature before us, I saw enough. It had a body like a spider, with eight long chitinous legs. Only its body was much larger than any spider I’d ever seen before.
​
Much, much larger.
​
This creature was almost the size of a small car, but it wasn’t its size that terrified me. It was the humanoid torso coming out of the front of it. The two arms that ended in razor sharp claws, the snarling mouth that made noises that almost sounded human.
​
When this impossible thing looked at us, I saw real intelligence in its eyes. It was studying us, trying to determine how much of a threat we were…
​
Long kept his gun trained on it, hands shaking violently. I knew that he was going to shoot again, and hoping not to anger this thing, grabbed his arm, trying to force his gun down. He jumped the moment that I touched him giving me a hysterical look.
“Don’t!” I snapped, “You’re just gonna piss it off!”
​
The Spider took a step toward us, hissing as it did. Long pulled away from me.
“Stu!”
I tried calling his name, but Long had already made his choice and sealed his fate. He’d opted to fight this thing. And so, like the fool he was he shot at it again.
​
The Spider lunged for us.
​
I ran. Long didn’t.
​
He only had enough time to scream before it pounced on him, and then… all I could hear were the dying screams in his throat as he was pulled apart. I didn’t see him die. But I didn’t need to. I heard everything. I kept running, not even thinking about where the approach channel was going to end. And when it did end, all I could do was plummet into the darkness.
​
See, at the end of an approach channel is what is appropriately called a drop shaft. It’s where the water flows into a larger tunnel beneath the city. That tunnel, flows into the water treatment plant, eventually and the water down there… yeah… let’s just say that you don’t want to end up in the water down there.
​
Unfortunately, that was exactly where I was going.
​
I know that every job has its struggles, but I didn’t expect to need to choose between diving into raw sewage and fighting a giant spider monster when I woke up that morning. However the choice was presented to me and I did the best that I could given the circumstances.
​
Going into the wastewater was exactly an unpleasant experience as you’d think it would be. I’m inclined not to share the details of what it was like, simply because I genuinely do not want to remember them and I’m still not entirely convinced that dealing with the giant angry spider person wasn’t the better choice.
​
A small comfort was that the pain of hitting the water, combined with the confusing sensation of being flushed through a pipe and into an even larger pipe made the whole experience slightly less disgusting, at the cost of being considerably more painful.
​
At the end of it, I was washed out into the main pipe and collapsed into the water, covered in filth and gagging from the stench that had sank into my every pore. I felt disoriented and confused. I tried to stand, only to collapse back into the wastewater, before aimlessly looking around, hoping that maybe I could figure out what direction to go in. It was too dark to see much of anything and I’d lost my flashlight during my trip through the wastewater, so I was left to just wander aimlessly, following what I thought was the flow of the water as my eyes slowly started to acclimate to the darkness.
​
I could feel shapes in the water. Some of them I almost tripped over and I could smell rotting meat on top of the stink of human waste. In the darkness, I could make out shapes in the water and hear the buzzing of bugs around me. I could even feel a few whizz past my head and mindlessly swatted at them.
​
Old bones crunched under my boots, and I quietly thanked whatever God was listening that I couldn’t see what they’d belonged to. I wanted to assume they were animal bones… but who knew, right? I couldn’t shake the mental image of myself unknowingly stepping over the mauled corpse of Stewart Long… although that was more from the trauma of having recently witnessed a man die than any guilt over what had happened to him. Long had quite literally gotten himself killed. Although I was terrified that I’d be joining him at any second.
​
I kept listening in, half expecting to hear spider legs creeping up behind me. But it was impossible to tell if I was alone or not in that darkness and with the bugs buzzing past me. If there were anything after me, I truly would not know it until after it had pounced.
​
Still, I knew I couldn’t afford to let the fear get the better of me. So I just kept walking, hoping that maybe if I did, I’d somehow find myself at the water treatment plant and maybe then I’d get some help.
​
Maybe.
​
As I pressed on, I noticed a light ahead of me and picked up the pace, hoping to God that I’d finally found my way out of this mess. But as I drew closer, I became very aware that whatever the source of that light was, it was not from the water treatment plant.
​
In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. My first thought was that it was a fatberg (which is a solid mass of waste matter formed by an unholy mixture of wet wipes, grease, oil and every other piece of garbage people tend to flush down their toilets) but the longer I looked, the less certain I was about that.
​
Fatbergs usually didn’t have lamps embedded in them.
​
Fatbergs usually didn’t have thick spiderwebs clinging to them.
​
Fatbergs didn’t usually lead into a separate tunnel into the earth large enough for me to walk through.
​
And finally, fatbergs didn’t usually have dead deer protruding from them. Let alone dead deer with other bugs living in them. God… the sight of those corpses… the way the bugs crawled through the rotting flesh and exposed bone. The empty, hollow eyes… it was almost too horrible to look at.
​
And I swore that I could see things inside the corpses! Honeycombs of some sort, and the bugs who crawled around them looked almost like bees.
​
Was… was something cultivating some kind of bee in these things?
​
I thought back to Troy’s rules.
“Rule 4: If you find a body… and odds are, you will find a body, don’t touch it. Don’t try to move it. Hell, don’t even get close to it. And don’t waste the supervisor's time reporting it. Only time the bodies get reported is when they’re human.”
​
Suddenly, they made a little more sense. If those spider things were cultivating something in these bodies… of course we shouldn’t touch them. And if they were cultivating their food in the sewer… I paused, before staring down the tunnel that the corpses sat near the entrance of.
​
Dull lamps illuminated it as it wound down into the earth, and I could see several pale centipede things that looked a lot like the creature that Long had shot to get us into this mess in the first place. These things must have belonged to the Spiders too, although whether they were some sort of guard dog or another thing they were farming was hard to say.
​
I took a step away from the tunnel, before looking back to make sure that I was well enough alone and trudging onward. And that was when I heard the slow rustle of movement.
​
I paused, feeling a chill run through me as the imminent reality of my own death dawned on me.
​
Slowly I turned, just in time to see a dark shape descending from the ceiling. A fresh set of eyes settled on me, narrowing as they studied me.
​
I put my hands up, hoping that it might understand the gesture of surrender and slowly it drew closer to me. I wasn’t sure if it was curious, or looking to murder me and at that point, I don’t think it really mattered. I wish I could say that I faced my death with dignity, but I’m going to be honest, I didn’t. I sat there, quivering and praying to whatever God would listen that it wouldn’t, kill me.
​
And then… I heard a voice.
“Leave that one! He’s with me!”
​
Troy?
​
I saw a figure emerge from the tunnel in the wall, and against all logic, somehow it was Troy! He had a hell of a goose egg on his head from where he’d been hit earlier, but he was alive! He stepped between me and the spider person, arms outstretched.
​
“With me.” He repeated firmly.
The Spider stared down at him, before huffing and turning away. I watched as they disappeared down the nearby tunnel, and Troy watched them go, before quietly turning to me.
​
“Good lord, boy… I’m shocked to see you’re still alive!”
“W-what just happened?” Was the only thing I could stammer. “You can talk to them?!”
“Some of ‘em. I’ve been down here for long enough that they know me. Know I’m not a threat. But they ain’t too happy with us right now. So what you’re gonna do here is get up, follow me, and I’m gonna get you out of here.”
“How do you know they’re even gonna let us leave?” I asked.
​
Troy’s expression soured.
“Had to pay ‘em off…” He admitted, “Let them keep what was left of your friend. They considered it a fair trade, so long as we leave. Now, let’s go.”
I didn’t ask any more questions.
​
***
​
After I made it out of the sewers that day, I ended up in the hospital alongside Peter. I had some minor cuts and bruises, a burning rash over most of my body from all the sewage I’d been crawling around in… but I was still alive, and I figured that had to count for something.
​
Nobody said a word about what happened to Stewart Long down in the sewer. He got written off as a workplace accident and they never even tried to recover his body. I suspect what’s left of him is still down in the sewers, even now… feeding whatever it is that those things down there are cultivating, although I’ve never seen the body myself.
​
Yes… I have been back down beneath the southeast side of town. The next time they needed someone to go, they sent me and Tomas along with Troy, Craig and Peter. We know what’s down there and we know how to deal with them, after all. My second visit to those sewers was a lot less eventful, and most of my subsequent visits haven’t been all that eventful either.
​
Over the years, I’ve gotten better at dealing with the Spiders… they’re not the most friendly folk and I know all too well that if you cross them, they’ll rip your guts out before you even realize that you’re dead. But so long as you follow the rules and leave them alone, they’re content to live and let live. They can even be reasonable, to an extent. We’ve had a few small incidents over the years, but nothing like the one that Long caused.
​
Odds are, when Troy and Craig retire next year, Tomas and I will be training the next group on what to do when you’re down beneath the southeast side of town. So in preparation for that, I’ve made a point to keep a copy of Tom's rules in the pumphouse. I also keep a picture of Stewart Long in there. Not as a memorial and not out of spite either. Just as a grim reminder of what can happen when you don’t follow the [rules.](https://www.reddit.com/HeadOfSpectre/)

The way I see it, if you don’t notice that I exist, then I’m doing my job correctly.
​
My name is Ben McFarlane and I work as a municipal sewer inspector in the town of Tevam Sound, Ontario. It's not the most glamorous job, but hey, somebody's got to do it and it puts food on the table.
​
You'd probably think that working as a sewer inspector isn't that exciting… and yeah, for the most part you'd be right. Most of the time, all I'm doing is checking the pipes for damage. Unless there’s a reason for me to investigate a certain area, most of what I do is routine inspection, which helps ensure that the sewers remain in good working order. Trust me, nobody wants to see what happens when they aren’t.
​
Thankfully, a lot of what I do can be done without me needing to crawl through pipes. I can use a small camera to help me do the inspection. But with some of the larger pipes and cisterns, I need to actually go inside and take a look.
​
It’s never the best part of my day, but like I said before: somebody’s got to do it.
​
Going down into the bigger tunnels is always a little unnerving. Part of it is the claustrophobic atmosphere and part of it is the knowledge that you’re basically standing in a river of literal human waste. I can deal with it now, but back when I first started the smell alone was darn near impossible to deal with.
​
Ask most sanitation workers and I'm sure they'll have stories about what they've found in the sewers before. Heck, most of it isn't even stuff that people flush down the toilet. It's the stuff that people drop down manhole covers, or the stuff that gets washed into the sewers by the rain. Dead animals are surprisingly common, as are kids toys. I found an entire bicycle in the sewer once and I've got a buddy who found a loaded gun down there! Someone probably thought they'd get rid of it by just tossing it in the sewer.
​
Someone was wrong.
​
But of all the strange things I've experienced during my time working in the sewers… none of it compares to the stuff I see in the pipes on the southeast side of town.
​
The things down there… I don't usually like to talk about them. Heck, I might not even be legally allowed to talk about them. I guess we'll find out, won't we? I've had a few drinks tonight and I'm feeling particularly chatty. So why not spill the beans? Hey, maybe someone out there will tell me something I don’t already know.
​
I’d been on the job for about a year or so before getting sent to the southeast side of town. It’s closer to the lake and the downtown area, so there’s some deeper pipes there. I’d always figured that that was the reason they only really ever sent certain people down there. I’d heard that those tunnels were old and a little labyrinthian. Anyone who didn’t know what they were doing could easily get lost.
​
But after we got hit with a particularly nasty rain storm back in summer of 2013, they needed to send someone down to check on some sensors and I just so happened to be one of the guys who was available.
​
A bad rain storm can push a sewer system to its limit, so it wasn’t really that surprising that we’d gotten that kind of call and at the time, I didn’t think that there was anything that strange about it. My supervisor told me to head on down toward the pumphouse on the southwest side of town like it was any other priority inspection, and I went along with no questions asked. It was a few streets away from downtown. I’d seen it before but never had a reason to go inside up until then.
​
I was working with a couple of other newbies at the time, a guy by the name of Stewart Long who’d only been on the job for a round three months or so, and another guy by the name of Tomas Opunui who’d started around the same time that I had.
​
We’d arrived at the pumphouse, and when we got there we noticed another team waiting on us. This wasn’t too shocking either. Depending on the size of the job, they might’ve sent some other guys in to help us handle it.
​
The guy in charge was an older man who looked to be pushing sixty. He had sort of a ‘Santa Claus on summer vacation’ look, with white hair, a short white beard, a big beer belly and a no nonsense expression.
​
He watched us get out of his truck with a look of stern disapproval, before huffing and trudging over to us.
“Where’s the usual fellas?” He asked.
“I dunno, out. They called us,” I replied.
​
He didn’t seem to like that answer but didn’t say anything in response to it.
“You ever worked on the southeast approach channel before?” He asked.
“Yeah, we’ve been in the ones on the north side of town,” I said.
“That’s not what I asked, kid. You ever worked in this one before?”
​
Something about the way he asked this question struck me as a little odd. I’d worked in an approach channel before. I knew the drill. What did it matter which one I’d worked in?
​
For the unenlightened, an approach channel is a cistern filled with wastewater. They feed into a deep tunnel which feeds into a water treatment plant and they’re considered to be fairly dangerous, due to their depth (if you fall off the ladder on your way down, you’re in for a long drop into a biohazardous lake unless you’re properly tethered) and the harmful gasses that can accumulate in them. Standard operating procedure is to always test the air before entering one just to make sure that it’s even safe to breathe down there.
​
Being reckless while going into an approach channel is a recipe for disaster, and I would have understood if the old man was concerned about us not having dealt with one before. But the way he spoke to us implied that this one was different somehow, which didn’t make a whole heck of a lot of sense to me.
“What’s the difference?” I asked. “Same procedure, right?”
“No, not the same procedure. We need people experienced with this approach channel. These tunnels are a little different than what you’re used to.
“Look, the boss sent us here. So I’m sure we’ll manage,” Tomas said. “You can show us what we need to know.”
​
The Old Man didn’t respond to him. He just shook his head and turned away.
“I’m gonna call this in and clear it with the boss first. You three, don’t move until I get back.”
I traded a look with both Tomas and Long as the Old Man trudged away. He said something to the two guys who were with him, before getting back into his truck to make a call.
​
Part of me was obliged to try and just get to work. But looking at the other two guys that the Old Man had with him, I had a feeling that they’d try to stop me. One of them, another older guy with a receding hairline and a bushy moustache was watching us like a hawk.
​
So we waited.
​
After a few minutes, the Old Man got out of his truck again, said something to his buddy with the mustache and trudged back over to us.
“Bad news, fellas. Looks like our usual company’s retired… guess you’re the replacement.”
“So we can get to work?” I asked.
“Yeah. We can get to work,” The Old Man said. “Come on, let’s get going.”
​
With that, he turned and led us into the pumphouse.
“Suppose I might as well introduce myself. Names Troy. My colleagues here are Craig and Peter.”
He gestured to the two men who were with him, Mr. Moustache (who I assumed was Craig) and the other guy, who looked to be in his mid thirties and had sunken eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in a few days. The one who I assumed was Craig just gave us a nod, while the guy I figured was Peter gave a lazy half wave before they followed us into the pumphouse.
“So if you don’t mind my asking, what’s so special about this channel?” I asked.
“I guess you’ll be seeing for yourself soon enough,” Troy replied as he started down a set of stairs. “The guys you’re replacing… well, guy… a fella named Tom… he always had a set of rules for working down here. He passed ‘em on to me and Craig when we started. We’ve passed ‘em on to Peter. Guess it’s time we passed ‘em on to you too.”
​
“Rules?” I asked, “What kind of rules?”
“The kind you listen very, very closely to, kid.” Troy looked back at me, before his eyes shifted to Tomas and Long behind me.
“Very, very closely.”
He descended the rest of the way down the stairs, where there was a hatch in the concrete floor beneath us, along with a large locker on the far side of the room.
​
“Rule number one,” Troy began. “You don’t enter this part of the sewers alone. You stay in a group of at least three to four at all times. No more, no less. Too many and it slows you down. Too few, and you might not come back at all.”
He trailed off, watching as Craig cracked open the hatch to test the air inside.
​
“Rule number two: You do not enter this part of the sewers without a gun and a radio.”
He opened the locker on the far side of the room and I was taken aback to see a collection of several handguns inside, along with boxes of ammunition and one shotgun in amongst the usual PPE.
Troy clipped one of the guns to his belt, along with one of the radios, before handing a pair off to Peter and looking over at us.
​
“Who’s taking it?” He asked.
“Whoa, just hold up for a minute!” Long interjected, “What the hell is down there?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Troy replied. “Hate to say it but it ain’t our job to know. I leave that to someone else. Our job is to follow the rules. You follow them, and you’ll be fine.”
Long seemed skeptical, but I looked at the gun in Troy’s hand and took it. I wasn’t sure if he was having a laugh with us or not, but I was there to do a job and I intended to do it.
​
Troy gave me a quiet nod, before thrusting the second gun over to Long. He didn’t seem to happy to get it.
“Are we gonna have to use these?” He asked.
“Not if you do as I say, you won’t. Rule 3: If you see a pipe or a tunnel with heavy spiderwebs, don’t go down it. Doesn’t matter if that’s where the sensor is. You make a note of it, report it to your supervisor and leave it alone.”
​
Spiderwebs? What the hell was he talking about?
“Rule 4: If you find a body… and odds are, you will find a body, don’t touch it. Don’t try to move it. Hell, don’t even get close to it. And don’t waste the supervisors time reporting it. Only time the bodies get reported is when they’re human.”
“I’m sorry, you’ve been finding human bodies down there?” I asked.
“Rarely,” He replied. “But it’s been known to happen. And if we do find one… the same rules apply. Don’t approach it. Don’t touch it. Stay as far away as possible.”
​
I could see some of the color draining from Long’s face.
“Rule 5: If you see anyone else down there, you are not to interact with them. You do not follow them if they try to lead you somewhere, if they ask you for help, you do not help them. I don’t care if they’re crying and begging. You leave them alone. You report it to your supervisor.”
“There are people down there?” I asked.
“Normally, no. Far as I know, Tom only ever ran into a couple during his career. I’ve only ever seen one. Like I said, best to leave them alone.”
​
“Why?” I asked, “If there’s someone stuck down there, we have an obligation to help them!”
“That would be very ill advised,” Troy said. “You don’t want to anger the things that are down there… which leads me to rule 6: Avoid killing anything you come across down there. They’re not yours to kill. And if you have absolutely no choice, if you have to break that rule for the sake of self defense, then we leave immediately. That’s rule number 7.”
​
“Air’s safe down there,” Craig said, interrupting our conversation.
“Good. Let’s get suited up, then. Oh… and rule 8. Final rule. If anything happens to any member of our team, we leave immediately. We don’t go after them. We don’t try to help them. We leave immediately. Is that clear? I don’t care if it’s me, begging you for help. You leave me behind.”
​
Long and I remained silent, neither of us entirely sure how to react to this or even what to say. Troy had made it sound as if we were about to descend into a level of hell. I couldn’t imagine what the hell could possibly be down there to elicit a list of rules like that, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to find out either!
“Well? You fellas getting ready or not?” Troy asked impatiently as he put on his PPE. “The quicker we get down there, the quicker we can get out again!”
​
“If this is so dangerous, why are they sending us?” Long asked, “Shouldn’t they be sending… I dunno, the cops or something?”
“They tolerate us being down there, so long as we don’t disturb them. They wouldn’t be so forgiving toward the local police,” Troy replied. “Listen, kid. Obey the rules and you’ll be fine, got that? We’ve been doing this for years without any problems. You keep your head on your shoulders, you do what we say and you go home safe. Alright?”
​
Long still didn’t seem convinced, but I did. By this point, I was morbidly curious about exactly what was down there… and Troy’s assurance that they’d come out unscathed before did set me at ease a little bit. These rules sounded kinda scary, but what could realistically go wrong? With Troy keeping us in line, everything would probably be fine and besides, I still wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t all some sort of elaborate prank the old man was pulling. I grabbed myself a set of PPE and got ready and after a moments hesitation, Long did the same.
​
When we were ready, Craig opened up the hatch in the floor, and Tomas helped get us tethered so that we wouldn’t plummet down into the waters below if we slipped on the ladder, then we finally began our descent.
​
Troy went first, climbing down the ladder and into the darkness below. I went second, followed by Peter and followed by Long.
​
We climbed down into the approach channel in relative silence, only really speaking again once we made it to the bottom of the ladder.
​
Troy helped me get untethered, before doing the same for Peter and Long as they reached the bottom, and while he did that I got my first look at the dreaded southeast approach channel. I can’t say that there was a heck of a lot to see. The walls were boxy and flat, and the dirty wastewater trickled over my boots and into the pipe sending it even deeper through the sewer system.
​
The sensors should have been mounted on the ceiling, and I traced the black conduit line with my flashlight as I searched for the sensor they connected to. Peter and Long stayed back as Tomas and Craig lowered our tools down after us, while Troy came up behind me.
“Should be quick work…” He noted, “Rain doesn’t seem to have done much in here. Water level is still fairly low.”
​
I saw his flashlight shift upward toward the ceiling before he spotted the sensor. He trudged through the water to get closer to it, and I followed him.
“No external damage,” I noted. “Conduit lines look good too.”
“Yeah, we’ll run our tests and get out of here,” Troy said. “Approach channel is usually pretty safe… usually.”
“Usually?” I asked, and Troy pointed his flashlight up toward a set of silky spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling a few feet behind the sensor.
​
“They don’t typically come up here… but every now and then you might find some proof of some young ones, trying to get into the pumphouse.”
I looked over at him.
“They try to break into the pumphouse?” I asked, “Did they ever get in?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard of. Can’t imagine they’d stay long if they did. Nothing to eat in there.”
“What exactly are they?” I asked, “And don’t you tell me that’s not for us to know. You’ve seen them, right? What do they look like?”
​
Troy had started to answer, when suddenly I heard Long screaming and swearing up a storm. Both of us turned to look, just in time to see something large skittering up the wall beside him. I only caught a brief glimpse of it, but it seemed to be roughly the size of a dog with more legs than I could count. Long stared at it with wide, horrified eyes as he fumbled with his gun, before pulling it free.
​
I saw Troy’s eyes widen before Long fired five times. Only one or two of the bullets actually hit the target. I heard Peter cry out in pain and grab at his arm before falling and whatever it was that Long had actually been shooting at collapsed into the shallow water, its pale body twitching violently.
“What did you just do?!” Troy demanded, running over to Peter’s side.
“I-it was coming for me!” Long protested, before noticing what he’d done to Peter. I saw his eyes widen in horror.
“Oh no… no, no, no… I didn’t…”
“Rule 6! You don’t kill anything down here! You leave them alone and they leave you alone!” Troy roared, before his attention returned to Peter. “How bad is it?”
​
“J-just a scratch, boss… I think I got hit by the ricochet,” Peter said, as Troy inspected his wound. I’ve never seen a gunshot wound before, but there was a lot of blood for it to just be a scratch.
“We’ll get you topside,” Troy said. “And come back down tomorrow with someone who knows how to follow rules!”
​
He shot Long a death glare before his radio crackled to life.
“Troy, everything good down there?” Craig asked.
“No, no it isn’t. One of the newbies got jumpy, shot at a centipede.” He huffed, “Put a hole in Peter in the process. Think you can reel him back up?”
“Yeah, sure thing. Hook him up. Tomas and I will bring him topside.”
​
Troy quietly hooked Peter up to the line, before helping him onto the ladder.
“You take it easy on the way up, and we’ll get that checked out,” He promised.
“Thanks boss,” Peter said quietly.
Troy’s attention returned to Long next, as he fixed him in a death glare.
“You, up the ladder behind him. And you…” He looked at me, his expression softening just a little.
“Behind him. I’ll go up last.”
​
Peter started to meekly climb the ladder, although it seemed like Craig and Tomas were doing most of the work, hoisting him up rung by rung. Once he’d made it part of the way up, Long started to hook himself up to climb behind him. Although before he could hook himself in, I saw him pause for a moment, staring at Troy.
“What is it?” Troy asked, before pausing.
​
Long craned his neck a little, his hand moving down to his gun again… and it was then that both Troy and I realized that he hadn’t been looking at Troy. He’d been looking at what was behind him.
​
I only saw a shadow, perched on the roof of the tunnel. But that was all that Long needed to see before he started shooting again.
“DON’T!”
But by the time Troy had gotten the word out, that trigger happy idiot had already started shooting again and this time, the thing that came for him didn’t drop dead.
​
Instead, it launched itself off of the ceiling of the tunnel, crashing into the ground a few feet away from me.
“WAIT!” Troy tried to protest before the thing in front of us knocked him aside, dashing him against the wall. Long scrambled away, retreating deeper into the tunnel while Peter frantically tried to unholster his gun.
“Troy? Troy, what’s going on down there?” I heard Craig calling over the radio, “Troy? Anyone, respond!”
​
The shape in front of us turned, looking over at me and Long. Eight eyes shone in the darkness and though I could only see the shadow of the creature before us, I saw enough. It had a body like a spider, with eight long chitinous legs. Only its body was much larger than any spider I’d ever seen before.
​
Much, much larger.
​
This creature was almost the size of a small car, but it wasn’t its size that terrified me. It was the humanoid torso coming out of the front of it. The two arms that ended in razor sharp claws, the snarling mouth that made noises that almost sounded human.
​
When this impossible thing looked at us, I saw real intelligence in its eyes. It was studying us, trying to determine how much of a threat we were…
​
Long kept his gun trained on it, hands shaking violently. I knew that he was going to shoot again, and hoping not to anger this thing, grabbed his arm, trying to force his gun down. He jumped the moment that I touched him giving me a hysterical look.
“Don’t!” I snapped, “You’re just gonna piss it off!”
​
The Spider took a step toward us, hissing as it did. Long pulled away from me.
“Stu!”
I tried calling his name, but Long had already made his choice and sealed his fate. He’d opted to fight this thing. And so, like the fool he was he shot at it again.
​
The Spider lunged for us.
​
I ran. Long didn’t.
​
He only had enough time to scream before it pounced on him, and then… all I could hear were the dying screams in his throat as he was pulled apart. I didn’t see him die. But I didn’t need to. I heard everything. I kept running, not even thinking about where the approach channel was going to end. And when it did end, all I could do was plummet into the darkness.
​
See, at the end of an approach channel is what is appropriately called a drop shaft. It’s where the water flows into a larger tunnel beneath the city. That tunnel, flows into the water treatment plant, eventually and the water down there… yeah… let’s just say that you don’t want to end up in the water down there.
​
Unfortunately, that was exactly where I was going.
​
I know that every job has its struggles, but I didn’t expect to need to choose between diving into raw sewage and fighting a giant spider monster when I woke up that morning. However the choice was presented to me and I did the best that I could given the circumstances.
​
Going into the wastewater was exactly an unpleasant experience as you’d think it would be. I’m inclined not to share the details of what it was like, simply because I genuinely do not want to remember them and I’m still not entirely convinced that dealing with the giant angry spider person wasn’t the better choice.
​
A small comfort was that the pain of hitting the water, combined with the confusing sensation of being flushed through a pipe and into an even larger pipe made the whole experience slightly less disgusting, at the cost of being considerably more painful.
​
At the end of it, I was washed out into the main pipe and collapsed into the water, covered in filth and gagging from the stench that had sank into my every pore. I felt disoriented and confused. I tried to stand, only to collapse back into the wastewater, before aimlessly looking around, hoping that maybe I could figure out what direction to go in. It was too dark to see much of anything and I’d lost my flashlight during my trip through the wastewater, so I was left to just wander aimlessly, following what I thought was the flow of the water as my eyes slowly started to acclimate to the darkness.
​
I could feel shapes in the water. Some of them I almost tripped over and I could smell rotting meat on top of the stink of human waste. In the darkness, I could make out shapes in the water and hear the buzzing of bugs around me. I could even feel a few whizz past my head and mindlessly swatted at them.
​
Old bones crunched under my boots, and I quietly thanked whatever God was listening that I couldn’t see what they’d belonged to. I wanted to assume they were animal bones… but who knew, right? I couldn’t shake the mental image of myself unknowingly stepping over the mauled corpse of Stewart Long… although that was more from the trauma of having recently witnessed a man die than any guilt over what had happened to him. Long had quite literally gotten himself killed. Although I was terrified that I’d be joining him at any second.
​
I kept listening in, half expecting to hear spider legs creeping up behind me. But it was impossible to tell if I was alone or not in that darkness and with the bugs buzzing past me. If there were anything after me, I truly would not know it until after it had pounced.
​
Still, I knew I couldn’t afford to let the fear get the better of me. So I just kept walking, hoping that maybe if I did, I’d somehow find myself at the water treatment plant and maybe then I’d get some help.
​
Maybe.
​
As I pressed on, I noticed a light ahead of me and picked up the pace, hoping to God that I’d finally found my way out of this mess. But as I drew closer, I became very aware that whatever the source of that light was, it was not from the water treatment plant.
​
In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. My first thought was that it was a fatberg (which is a solid mass of waste matter formed by an unholy mixture of wet wipes, grease, oil and every other piece of garbage people tend to flush down their toilets) but the longer I looked, the less certain I was about that.
​
Fatbergs usually didn’t have lamps embedded in them.
​
Fatbergs usually didn’t have thick spiderwebs clinging to them.
​
Fatbergs didn’t usually lead into a separate tunnel into the earth large enough for me to walk through.
​
And finally, fatbergs didn’t usually have dead deer protruding from them. Let alone dead deer with other bugs living in them. God… the sight of those corpses… the way the bugs crawled through the rotting flesh and exposed bone. The empty, hollow eyes… it was almost too horrible to look at.
​
And I swore that I could see things inside the corpses! Honeycombs of some sort, and the bugs who crawled around them looked almost like bees.
​
Was… was something cultivating some kind of bee in these things?
​
I thought back to Troy’s rules.
“Rule 4: If you find a body… and odds are, you will find a body, don’t touch it. Don’t try to move it. Hell, don’t even get close to it. And don’t waste the supervisor's time reporting it. Only time the bodies get reported is when they’re human.”
​
Suddenly, they made a little more sense. If those spider things were cultivating something in these bodies… of course we shouldn’t touch them. And if they were cultivating their food in the sewer… I paused, before staring down the tunnel that the corpses sat near the entrance of.
​
Dull lamps illuminated it as it wound down into the earth, and I could see several pale centipede things that looked a lot like the creature that Long had shot to get us into this mess in the first place. These things must have belonged to the Spiders too, although whether they were some sort of guard dog or another thing they were farming was hard to say.
​
I took a step away from the tunnel, before looking back to make sure that I was well enough alone and trudging onward. And that was when I heard the slow rustle of movement.
​
I paused, feeling a chill run through me as the imminent reality of my own death dawned on me.
​
Slowly I turned, just in time to see a dark shape descending from the ceiling. A fresh set of eyes settled on me, narrowing as they studied me.
​
I put my hands up, hoping that it might understand the gesture of surrender and slowly it drew closer to me. I wasn’t sure if it was curious, or looking to murder me and at that point, I don’t think it really mattered. I wish I could say that I faced my death with dignity, but I’m going to be honest, I didn’t. I sat there, quivering and praying to whatever God would listen that it wouldn’t, kill me.
​
And then… I heard a voice.
“Leave that one! He’s with me!”
​
Troy?
​
I saw a figure emerge from the tunnel in the wall, and against all logic, somehow it was Troy! He had a hell of a goose egg on his head from where he’d been hit earlier, but he was alive! He stepped between me and the spider person, arms outstretched.
​
“With me.” He repeated firmly.
The Spider stared down at him, before huffing and turning away. I watched as they disappeared down the nearby tunnel, and Troy watched them go, before quietly turning to me.
​
“Good lord, boy… I’m shocked to see you’re still alive!”
“W-what just happened?” Was the only thing I could stammer. “You can talk to them?!”
“Some of ‘em. I’ve been down here for long enough that they know me. Know I’m not a threat. But they ain’t too happy with us right now. So what you’re gonna do here is get up, follow me, and I’m gonna get you out of here.”
“How do you know they’re even gonna let us leave?” I asked.
​
Troy’s expression soured.
“Had to pay ‘em off…” He admitted, “Let them keep what was left of your friend. They considered it a fair trade, so long as we leave. Now, let’s go.”
I didn’t ask any more questions.
​
***
​
After I made it out of the sewers that day, I ended up in the hospital alongside Peter. I had some minor cuts and bruises, a burning rash over most of my body from all the sewage I’d been crawling around in… but I was still alive, and I figured that had to count for something.
​
Nobody said a word about what happened to Stewart Long down in the sewer. He got written off as a workplace accident and they never even tried to recover his body. I suspect what’s left of him is still down in the sewers, even now… feeding whatever it is that those things down there are cultivating, although I’ve never seen the body myself.
​
Yes… I have been back down beneath the southeast side of town. The next time they needed someone to go, they sent me and Tomas along with Troy, Craig and Peter. We know what’s down there and we know how to deal with them, after all. My second visit to those sewers was a lot less eventful, and most of my subsequent visits haven’t been all that eventful either.
​
Over the years, I’ve gotten better at dealing with the Spiders… they’re not the most friendly folk and I know all too well that if you cross them, they’ll rip your guts out before you even realize that you’re dead. But so long as you follow the rules and leave them alone, they’re content to live and let live. They can even be reasonable, to an extent. We’ve had a few small incidents over the years, but nothing like the one that Long caused.
​
Odds are, when Troy and Craig retire next year, Tomas and I will be training the next group on what to do when you’re down beneath the southeast side of town. So in preparation for that, I’ve made a point to keep a copy of Tom's rules in the pumphouse. I also keep a picture of Stewart Long in there. Not as a memorial and not out of spite either. Just as a grim reminder of what can happen when you don’t follow the rules.

Storm Proxies Reviews: What Users Are Saying About Their ClonBrowser Experience
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TL;DR - In 1996, my father, a test-pilot at [Father's employer], was on a test flight at work and due to maintenance crew negligence (confirmed by NTSB report), the gear assembly came loose mid-flight and the caused the helicopter to lose control and crash, killing all three passengers. We settled in court, but now there is potentially new information/a new witness of the situation and I'm curious if there's anything we can do now.
More detailed, in the words of our lawyer back in the late nineties:
"He was flight testing a used helicopter, manufactured by [manufacturer] some years before. [Father's employer] personnel, including the maintenance supervisor had been performing maintenance and repair on the aircraft. At one critical joint in a gear assembly they had replaced the original bolt and locking nut with a cotter pin device of some sort. It turned out they did not use a new bolt/nut fastener, because ordering it from Boeing and waiting for delivery would have taken 2 days. Your dad took the aircraft up in the air and the cotter pin fastener failed, or came out of its berth. This caused a moving arm in the gear assembly to come loose and fly out of the engine housing. That event threw the copter out of control and it crashed.
Since [my father] died while in the course and scope of his employment and as a result of employment activity, the Workers Compensation Act covered the loss. By law it is generally treated as the sole and exclusive remedy for an on-the-job injury or death. Your mom therefore received widows benefits under the Compensation Act.
However, since the negligence of [father's employer] maintenance people was so profound, and since the benefits under workers compensation were so inadequate to cover the loss to your mother and the family, we decided to try and also pursue a lawsuit against [father's employer]. We did this under a provision in the Workers compensation Act that says if the workers injury or death results from intentional harm, rather than just negligence of the employer or co-employees, or by a simple accident, then the Compensation Act will not be considered the sole and exclusive remedy for the on the job loss. The injured party can then sue the employer for negligence. Our idea was that even though the conduct of the maintenance people that led to the crash was not intentional in the deliberate sense, it was so reckless in causing foreseeable risk of a crash that it should, as a legal matter, be treated as intentional.
The idea was very much a long shot with a good chance of being dismissed by the court.
However, we saw some basis to sue [manufacturer] also. We based that on the idea that the maintenance manual for the aircraft, supplied by [manufacturer], did not warn maintenance personnel to avoid replacing the nut/bolt assembly with a cotter pin. Since [manufacturer] was not your dad’s employer they could be sued as an independent third party. This was admittedly a pretty weak argument since one would expect expert and experienced maintenance people, such as those at [father's employer], to replace old parts with new ones of like type.
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the court dismissed our case against [father's employer] on the ground that the law treated the Workers Compensation Act as the exclusive remedy for the loss.
Eventually, after some pretrial maneuvering [manufacturer] agreed to pay a settlement in the form of what is called a “structured settlement”. That is where [manufacturer] pays money out in installments over a specified period of time, rather than in one lump sum."
The amount paid to each my sister and me by [manufacturer] at the time was $50K, as well as $20K for funeral expenses and legal fees. $120K in total. My mom has continued to make roughly $40K every year from Worker's Comp.
Non-financially, we grew up without a father as I was 3 and my sister was 8, my mom never re-married and was never the same.. she never went back to work.
My sister and I always thought [father's employer] was never held accountable for their fuck-up. And just recently, out of the wood work, a woman who was an entry level supply chain employee at the time of the accident came out to our families with a written letter about how she warned higher up maintenance leadership at the time of the issue several times but was disregarded and even heard comments like "what would a young woman know?".
I just want closure and feel I've never had any. I feel crazy that this was allowed to happen this way. These companies continue to go on and make millions and billions each year and we got a dead dad and the company's table scraps.
I guess I just want to know if there's anything we do now in light of this new info. I'm happy to provide more detail to anyone who can possibly help. I have case files and everything.
Thank you all.
Also, happy to name and shame these companies but figured I'm not allowed.

[Solved] Weapon Debris Setting Issue
I have uploaded my load order to modwat.ch here and one of my crash reports here, all of which seem to be identical for the most part. I saw that it was an access issue and tried running F4SE in administrator mode to try to remedy that, but it didn't fix it.
The issue I'm having is pretty random crashes. Location doesn't seem to matter, the direction I'm facing doesn't matter, I technically haven't tested if standing still would still cause it. Sometimes there is a freeze for about a second, unfreezes for a second, then crashes if that is at all relevant. Other times it crashes out of nowhere.
If any more info is needed just let me know and I'll try to get back to you ASAP.
Thanks in advance for any help. o7

I'm trying to run a Medieval Minecraft modpack 1.16.5 server, but it keeps crashing in certain circumstances. When I go to the "Ice Maze" location in the Deep Frozen Ocean biome, there are certain chunks that seemingly lag the server out when loaded. No specific reason in the crash report is given, the server just stops loading chunks and eventually times out. I've tried deleting the appropriate region files, killing entities via command, and removing mods causing errors but nothing has worked. Here is my crash log: https://pastebin.com/Es4NLbad