Hey, it's Maggie again. You guys were really nice to me last time! But I'm doing a lot worse than yesterday. Something happened and I don't know how to say this but I guess I'll just start at the beginning.
First off though, some of you asked me a few things that I wanna answer real quick. I wanted to talk about them anyways so it's good you brought those up.
Yes, there are mirrors here but only in the bathrooms. My room doesn't have one so I have to use the one accessible to everyone from the hallway. Dad says never to look at my reflection too long though. He says girls worry too much about their looks and that I shouldn't be like that, and I always do what Dad tells me.
As for my age, I don't want to say how old I am exactly because it's the internet and it scares me. Also, I've always been living here at the hospital. I don't know if we've ever lived anywhere else, but I can't remember. I also don't know anything about my mother and I've never wondered about her. Dad's here for me, I'm not missing anything.
So anyways, I had to talk to Dr Ellie for two entire hours this morning. She was being really nice about the whole picture thing but I kind of hated telling her about it. It made me think of that person again and I just wanted to forget about them. At the end of our session, Dr Ellie asked me something very strange though.
"Have you ever heard of something called Operation Magpie?"
I frowned. Something about these two words resonated with me but I had no idea what they meant.
"It sounds familiar but I don't know what it is."
"Alright. Well, I just thought… maybe." She sighed and buried her face in her hands for a split second.
"What is Operation Magpie then?"
"Please, forget I ever said anything," she muttered. With that, she sent me off.
Dad wasn't outside the office where he had dropped me off. I felt incredibly lonely after last night so I went to look for the next best person to keep me company I could think of. Jonah was in his room, sitting on his bed and staring up at the TV. His room is very much like mine, the same bed, closet, small table and television. I came in without knocking, a bad habit of mine, but he didn't tell me off for it. Even though he usually does.
"Hey, Maggie," he said quietly. "A buddy of mine told me what happened. How are you?"
"Better," I said, climbing up to sit next to him on top of his pillow.
"I'm sorry I didn't come to see you. I wasn't sure if you wanted to talk to anybody."
"I do, just not about the picture."
"Oh. Alright then." He fell silent and we watched TV for a little while. There was a rugby match on. I didn't really care for it.
"Jonah, what's Operation Magpie mean?"
My friend flinched. He flinched so hard he dropped the remote onto the floor beside the bed. "You remember Operation Magpie?" he stammered, in his eyes a mix of joy and disbelief I couldn't place.
"No, but Dr Ellie mentioned it earlier."
Jonah deflated. "Oh… well, um. I'm not supposed to say." He sounded disappointed.
"Why not, who's keeping you?"
"That would be your Dad."
"What?"
Jonah shrugged. "This is not easy to explain. I could try to talk around it now but… okay. Let's say Operation Magpie had to do with my job. And by extension your Dad's. But that's all I can tell you."
"You're not making any sense. At all."
"I'm sorry but how am I supposed to say this? I want to tell you, I do, but I can't." Jonah's voice was low and empty. I still had no idea what he was saying but there was a feeling of dread rising within me that I simply couldn't shake.
"Maggs, your father is a genius. My leg is his doing and he's made so much more like it, so much more complicated stuff. You should know that this kind of technology, the way we can replace parts of the body here, hardly anybody outside these walls has access to that sort of thing. And we have your Dad to thank for it. I mean, not only him of course, there's the other doctors and nurses and they're all doing amazing work here but the prosthetics… they're mostly Jack's thing."
My jaw must have dropped. Jonah went on. "He drafts them, he oversees their development, he does a lot of the engineering that goes into it and he made it possible to cover them up with realistic-looking skin. He's the most intelligent man I've ever met."
"Then why do you hate him?"
"Because he's also the craziest. He's messed up in the head."
"And why does he hate you?"
Jonah sighed. "Look, Jack and I have something of an ongoing feud. He's done something I don't agree with, something really bad. There's hardly anyone who confronts him about it but I do. He knows that he's wrong but he keeps trying to justify it. I give him the truth but he doesn't want to hear it and… that's why."
"Yeah, but what did he do?"
"I said I can't tell you, okay?" Jonah groaned, wiping his forehead. "I'm sorry. You're gonna have to leave me alone about this."
I hated giving in like that but I didn't want to argue with him either. I stayed in my friend's room for another hour, trying to make small talk and watching the game with him. Eventually I fell asleep and Jonah had to poke me in the arm until I woke up again.
"You should go to your room if you want to sleep," he told me. "It's bad enough you come in here without knocking, I'm not gonna let you take over my entire room."
I told him I was sorry and he just laughed and said I was acting a little bit like a cat. I made my way out into the hallway and back to my room. I wasn't sleepy anymore though for some reason. I hadn't seen Dad all day and I couldn't stop wondering why he hadn't showed up to look after me at least once. I was starting to get a little worried. After further futile attempts to try and occupy myself, I gave up and got on my way to start looking for Dad in his office.
Walking down the corridor, I noticed it was oddly quiet that day. That was why I jumped when I heard a door slam and the loud clacking of heels approaching. I saw Dr Ellie walk towards me from the very back of the hallway–where Dad's office was located. As she came closer, I realized she was sobbing quietly. Her shoulders were trembling and she was wiping her eyes. I stopped in my tracks.
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"Maggie!" She sounded like she hadn't noticed me standing there until I'd spoken up.
"What were you going to my Dad for?"
"I… we had a pretty big fight, your Dad and I. You won't be seeing me around here anymore."
"Why not? Did Daddy make you cry?"
She sniffed, stifling a chuckle. "A little bit."
"What did you fight about?" I took a step towards her and searched my pockets for a handkerchief for her but couldn't find anything. "I don't get it, everyone's got some kinda problem with Dad."
"Your Dad does a lot of stuff that makes a lot of people very upset. Me too. I've tried to talk sense into him but… well. He's finally made good on his threat. He always told me he'll have my job if I don't stop pestering him and now, now he's actually having me fired."
"No way I'm telling anyone about my nightmares but you! I'm gonna talk to him."
"That's sweet but… I doubt it'll help."
I shrugged. "I'm just gonna try, okay? No harm in trying." I went past her and into Dad's office. I came in without knocking again. He was sitting at his desk and at first, he didn't seem to notice me at all. He was staring at something that was lying in front of him. I couldn't see it since it was obscured behind all the other stuff cluttering the workspace, but he was moving one of his arms over the thing, almost like he was petting a kitten. His eyes were so fixated on the object that it felt like he wasn't present at all–his mind was miles away. It almost looked a bit creepy.
"What do you have there?" I asked.
Dad flinched as his head jerked up and he let out a tiny gasp. In a matter of seconds, he'd torn open the upper drawer of his desk and dropped whatever he'd been stroking inside. He slammed it shut. I was confused; why was he in such a hurry to hide this thing from me?
"Nothing," he said. "You really need to learn to knock at a door before coming in. It's rude and you know, one day you might see something you don't like."
"Like what?"
He threw his head back and sighed. "You're killing me. So what is it?"
"You didn't come to see me all day. Were you busy?"
"Yes. Sorry. You didn't get lonely, did you?" He waved me over to him and patted his leg. I'm a little big for sitting on his lap but he says that's okay. He says he dreads the day I outgrow him. So I sat down and hugged him and he asked how I was feeling and all that. We talked but I was staring at the drawer the whole time. Dad noticed. "We should go. Let's grab a snack or something."
Just as we were getting up, one of the nurses came rushing in. He looked panicked and seemed to be in a hurry. "Jack, you've got to come over to the B-station, there's been an emergency and we need an extra hand."
The B-station is another wing of the hospital, one where I'm not allowed to go on my own. Dad immediately followed the nurse out the door, dragging me along with him and apologizing over and over for having to leave me to myself again. He dropped me off in the mess hall and told me to get something to eat myself. All I could think of though was that he hadn't locked his office door on the way out. Once he was out of sight, I turned around and walked all the way back into the section with the researchers' workplaces.
I was all alone in the hallway, but knowing I wasn't supposed to be there still made me feel watched somehow. I quietly pressed down the handle of my father's office door and slipped inside. Without Dad in it, the room was kind of oppressive. The walls seemed high yet way too close at the same time. I sneaked over to the desk and opened the top drawer. When I laid eyes on what was inside, my heart sank.
It was a bone. It was smooth and white and almost slender in its shape, one end broken off and splintered. I slammed the drawer shut and stormed outside, closing the door behind me–and colliding full force with someone right behind me. I whimpered and spun around to find myself face to face with Jonah.
His jaw dropped when he saw the look on my face and he immediately rested his hand on my shoulder, awkwardly trying to comfort me. "What's wrong?" he asked softly. "What happened?"
I took deep breaths, but they came too fast. It was hard squeezing words out in between. "There's… a bone. In Dad's office. It can't be from any kind of food, it's too big and too clean."
Jonah's face fell but he said nothing.
"Why is it in there?" I panted. "Jonah, what's going on?"
"How'd you find it?"
"I saw him… like, play with it earlier but when I came in he put it away."
"Okay, calm down. We should leave here." He reached for my hand and I let him pull me along back into the section of the station intended for us patients. "I don't really wanna be seen running around back there. Jack's always looking for an excuse to give me hell, I don't wanna serve it to him myself. I just saw you walk back there and thought I should check on you."
My breathing slowed and I nodded at him. "Thanks. Hey, you don't have your crutches anymore," I remarked but he ignored it.
"Look, there's something I need to talk to you about. I can't really keep it in any longer and I don't want to, so… I can't just bust out a whole story here but I'm not the only one who tried to give your memory a little shove in the right direction."
"My memory?" I was puzzled.
Jonah groaned. "Nevermind. But there's one thing I want you to think about. You've seen my leg, yes? Notice how I didn't have a single hair there?"
I nodded wordlessly.
"Apart from your eyebrows and lashes and that on your head, do you have hair anywhere on your body?"
"Rude," I said.
Jonah let out a forced laugh. "You don't get it, do you?" He grabbed me by the arm and without even giving me the chance to protest, he dragged me down the hallway and into one of the bathrooms. It was the ladies' room, but there was no one else around who saw us so it didn't matter. Inside, Jonah ushered me over to one of the sinks. "Give me your hand," he ordered. I hesitantly reached out and let him position my arm over the edge of the sink. Then, he pulled something small and shiny out of his pocket. It was one of those tiny knives surgeons cut you up with. My stomach sank and I immediately tried to turn around and make for the door, but Jonah's other hand was wrapped around my wrist before I knew it and he pulled me back.
I opened my mouth to scream, but Jonah shushed me. "Quiet! This isn't gonna hurt, I promise. I really need to show you something."
I was trembling and already feeling tears in my eyes, but I obeyed. I didn't want to risk him taking that scalpel to my throat. Jonah slowly brought the tip of the tiny blade down on my lower arm. He'd been wrong, it did hurt, but oddly enough not nearly as much as I'd expected it would. It was almost unnoticeable. Still, I squirmed in his grip and whimpered like a crying puppy, but it was more due to fear than actual pain. I turned to look away, I couldn't bear to watch. Finally, he sat the knife aside and I risked a quick glance–there was no blood on it. Frowning in confusion, I looked down at my injured arm. Jonah had cut out an unfinished square. I could see the three lines the scalpel had left, but without the anticipated red drops protruding from them.
Jonah carefully shoved the tip of his finger underneath my skin. I gagged when I watched him lift it up, press his thumb against it on the other side and then cautiously peel it back.
I thought I had been horrified when I'd seen the picture of that mangled body in my room, but when I laid eyes on what was underneath my skin, a new kind of shock took a hold of me. The inside of my arm wasn't red, veiny and meaty as I'd always thought. It was black, smeared with some sort of slimy, transparent glue, but still shiny. Almost exactly like Jonah's leg before it had gotten its coating.
I had never questioned the workings of my body. This was me, this was my shell, these were the legs that carried me and the arms I used to carry food to my mouth. I had always felt like myself, unrestricted by any bodily ailments, free to move however I wanted. How would I have known there was metal inside me, or plastic or whatever this was?
I think I fainted because I can't remember anything after that sight. I woke up in my bedroom though. Jonah had probably brought me back. My head was reeling and I only got up to grab my trash can because I needed to hurl a little. When I was starting to feel better, I sneaked off into the computer room and that's where I am now. I don't know what to make of this yet. Dad has to have known about my arm. But I keep wondering if my arm's where it stops. What if I'm all plastic underneath this? What Jonah said really made me think. I actually don't have hair, like... anywhere?
I searched the web and as it turns out, kids my age normally have body hair, even if it's still really thin and almost invisible. I don't have any of that. Nowhere. It's just smooth, hairless skin. What scares me even more is that I searched my face for it as well and apart from my brows and eyelashes, there was absolutely nothing.
But that's not even all. Something else doesn't add up here. Dr Ellie found me in the computer room a little while ago. Our exchange was short but it weirded me out nonetheless.
"There you are. I've been looking for you. Is everything alright?"
I didn't want to tell her about my arm at first but she knew already, seeing as she went on with, "Jonah and I talked. I know what he… showed you. I have to be frank with you, I've known for a long time." She took a few steps towards me and then leaned in close to speak into my ear. "Don't tell your Daddy what you found out just yet, okay?" I felt her slide something cold and smooth into my hand. "This is the key to my office. They won't clean it out until tomorrow night but I won't be in ever again. So tomorrow, it's all yours; there's a lot for you to see in there. Be careful though. Jonah will help you if he can, you can trust him."
"Where are you going?" I asked quietly.
Dr Ellie drew back. "I'm gonna look for somewhere else to work, I guess."
"But I can still try and talk to my Dad! I'll get him to–"
"Sweetie, it's okay. I'll be fine. Now, you're about to find out some stuff if you go in there tomorrow, and you may not like it. But please, don't resist. Just let it come back to you." She gave me a sad smile. "I'm sorry for what you're about to see and I'm sorry for the role I've played in it. I hope you'll forgive me."
I hugged her. I'm not supposed to hug her but I didn't care. Now that she was leaving, it wouldn't matter anyways. I don't know what she has waiting in her room for me or what her conspiring with Jonah means but I'll find out. Tomorrow, I'm going in.
X
Update—Part 3
Update–Part 4

Hunter or Huntress Chapter 90: A Bad Night

So another round one, chapter 90. Only 10 to go for the big number, this actually also marks 1000 novel size pages of story-making just over 277.000 words thus far O_o For comparison, the lord of the rings is 576.000 so damn near halfway there... Holy fuck that is a lot of writing in just over three months. To mark the occasion this one is a special one. at some point, during today's story, there is going to be a fade to black and a little link (If you are speed machines please have patients it's coming ASAP)
Now in there, you will find nothing but gratuitous pancake, this is so that you have the choice, you may skip the standalone chapter and I promise you are not missing any of the actual story, at least as little as I could manage. for the rest of you Enjoy,
With the semantics out of the way, I say we get on with the story,
ko-fi For having more pretty pictures commissioned.
Sapphire
Wiki Discord
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Chapter 90: A Bad Night
Luke had returned with a gaggle of kids, who all looked rather overwhelmed by what they saw coming out. There were a lot of them, Tom counted twelve in total. All of them rather young; he guessed the oldest one looked about nine.
“Look, dragon!” a young boy shouted, running over to Jarix with a few others on his heels. Some were looking around, clearly searching for people who might not be here anymore. Others stood staring at Tom.
The sight of other kids also caused a fair amount of excitement, Luke ushering the more timid kids towards the ones from Hylsdal.
Tom just stood there putting a hand around Jacky’s waist, looking at the best reason for doing all this. He chuckled as Jarix elevated his head just out of grabbing range as the more excitable of the kids tried to touch his face. He had a smile on though, even if he looked a little unsure of what to do. Zarko was on hand to help though, telling off the kids who tried to climb up the wounded dragon.
It took some coaxing, but in the end, most of the kids had been convinced to start playing with each other, though some were still around sitting either crying or just keeping to themselves. Lothal was doing his best to try and console his friends and doing a remarkably good job of it. Tom couldn't decide if he was proud or sad at seeing an eleven-year-old acting like an adult.
Dinner was nothing special, just some more of the stew from earlier with some rather stale tasting bread. Jacky, Tom, Zarko, and Unkai had sat together with the lady, Luke, Requi and the healer who was sort of conscious for the moment. She was apparently called Quin, at least for short. Unkai too was sitting rather slack-eared, clearly having been put to hard work already.
Jarix was given some cuts of cured meat. The lady had brought out both some decent ale and even some wine, which was passed around the table. Tom had never tried dragonette wine before, so, despite his reservations about mixing alcohol with blood loss, he poured a cup for himself. That was an old student tactic, after all, to donate blood before a night on the town. It made things a bit cheaper.
“We might not be able to put together a feast, but we can do this, a small token of thanks. Luke, if you wouldn’t mind,” The Lady went as she took her seat, Luke standing up raising a glass.
“To the heroes in our hour of need!”
Tom damn near stood up to join Luke, Zarko grabbing him by the shoulder to keep him seated. As the assembled dragonettes of the keep gave a toast. Tom didn’t really know if he felt proud or just uncomfortable at this point. On one hand, he could look around the room to see many faces, most of which appeared happy. On the other hand, many definitely weren’t: a lone wounded father with a sobbing kid; the kids from Hylsdal; the countless wounded, some looking like they might not fly or even walk properly again.
“To the crazy bastard who made it possible,” Jackalope went as she raised her cup looking at Tom, apparently figuring out what was being toasted.
“Hey!” Jarix let out, clearly trying to sound offended. “To the crazy bastards who made it possible,” Zarko corrected, raising her cup.
“To wiping those fuckers off the map,” Tom joined in, feeling a little left out.
“Cheers to that,” The silvered huntress replied without much enthusiasm, slamming her drink down in one go. She was joined by the others. Tom took his time with his wine though. As expected it was rather sweet, definitely not bad though. They hadn’t made a huge thing out of the meal, it was just stew and bread after all, even if their drinks were well above average.
It had been a rather awkward meal though. Jackalope couldn’t partake in the conversation unless Tom or someone else wrote down for her what was going on. They all did their best to avoid the more depressing subject matters, but it was pretty damn hard to avoid them in their current state. Quite a few of the others had taken to drinking rather heavily. Tom could hardly blame them, but he kept it mild for now. Jacky, though, did make a dent in the ale supply. She didn’t get piss drunk, but she was definitely inebriated by now.
“You know, I’ve never been called a hero before,” Jacky went, leaning on Tom after they had finished the meal. “You still got the ace though… You always get the ace… Why are you so damn good at killing?” She questioned hanging on his shoulders.
Tom didn’t really know how to answer her on that one. “You know what,” She went, pulling back and poking him in the chest with a finger. “You get to teach me how. You’re not getting the ace next time,” Tom pondered for a second if that was a smart thing to agree to. It was likely going to happen though, so why not.
“I guess that’s the smart part about being deaf, I can’t hear if you're protesting, so I’m just gonna say you agreed,” Jackalope continued before he managed to nod his reply. She poured a fresh mug for the both of them, snickering. Tom debated getting out the notepad to try and tell her he needed to be a little careful when it came to alcohol right now. She beat him to it though. “You’re not drinking like last time; afraid we might do something stupid?”
Unkai damn near choked at that one. Zarko just shook her head, looking a tad embarrassed. ’Remember the angry smith Tom, Remember the angry smith,’ he repeated to himself. He got out the notepad to write down a response. Tom made well sure no one else saw what he wrote as he showed it to Jacky.
“I’m wounded, also your mother,” she pulled back a bit, looking a little annoyed.
“She is not here nor will she be... Hey Unkai! Can you give him a check? He claims to be wounded; I don’t want him dying on me.” She went, sounding entirely inappropriate.
Even Zarko had to suppress a slight laugh at that, Unkai looking like a deer in the headlights as Jacky’s attention switched to him.
“I mean sure. I’ll just finish this,” the healer replied, gesturing at his cup.
“I can’t hear you,” Jackalope reiterated with a side to side head bob. Unkai looked very embarrassed, just giving her a thumbs up instead.
‘Oh boy,’ Tom thought to himself, shrinking down.
“I think he needs more liquid courage to handle me though. Watch closely Unkai, you might learn how to grow a spine. Even if it’s only for a bit,” Jackalope continued, laughing at her own joke as she poured another drink for herself and refilling Tom’s cup.
“The man who went toe to toe with a small army and he needs help to handle you. What does that tell you?” Zarko let out, looking at Tom, seeming very pleased with herself.
“Don’t let them get to you Tom, you're braver than her,” Jarix added, ensuring that everyone in the entire hall was now invested in the conversation.
Tom just picked up the mug of ale she had poured for him. Jackalope excitedly raised hers as they knocked them together. ‘May the hangover have mercy on my soul,’ Tom thought to himself. He had been saved after a few mugs by the lady declaring that they needed to save enough for a proper feast when they could manage it.
The result was a nice buzz and an even cockier Jackalope as they left the table. Perhaps it was her time for some healing following that whole shit show. He had never seen her as distraught as she was at Hylsdal. Not to mention the expression on her face when Zarko had carried the body of the dead girl away after they landed.
Apparently, alcohol had at the very least helped her think about something else, as she was spouting funny stories and, of course, boasting about how amazing she had been in the battle. That had led to a hasty explanation about how Tom had let her borrow some of his power during the battle. He wasn’t entirely sure if any of the locals bought it, but they were way too polite to question the explanation though. Or possibly scared, or just didn’t care, he wasn’t quite sure.
Unkai had gone over Jackalope first and deemed her as fixed as she could be right now; he didn't dare try to fix her ears, claiming that to be way beyond him. He sounded confident that Nunuk might be able to put them back together again though. Jackalope let out an annoyed sigh at the news, though the part about Nunuk did help.
It was clear Jacky and Tom had received priority when it came to getting fixed up after the battle. Unkai had put in some work on Tom, mainly putting his effort into the stinger wound on his side. Tom had him check his neck wound as thoroughly as he could manage. But Unkai claimed that was as good as it was going to get, though he recommended some resting time.
“Fuck, I took painkillers earlier,” Tom let out as Unkai touched the stinger wound, which didn’t hurt as much as it should have.
“Is that bad?” Unkai had questioned, looking at the wound.
“I drank alcohol too, you're not supposed to mix those.” Unkai looked at Tom as if he was expecting more than that.
“Well don’t look at me, I don’t know how they work,” he finally responded, Jackalope’s face growing worried at the exchange, her gaze breaking as she looked to Unkai.
“He’s fine, right? He’s been stung before. He’s tough on that front even if his skin is soft like a kid’s,” She asked with worry in her voice slurring slightly, Tom taking slight offense at the last part. Unkai turned to her, giving her a thumbs up and a smile before looking back at the wound.
“Anything we can do about it?” the healer questioned, clearly trying to not look worried this time, for Jacky’s sake.
“Don’t think so. I guess I’m just gonna cross my fingers and wait it out,” Tom answered truthfully. He had no clue what the actual effect of that might be. He felt fine though. He was a little weird in the head, but that was honestly to be expected in his current condition.
“Well I don’t think you’re gonna be sleeping alone anyway, but consider it medical advice to have someone look after you,” Unkai replied trying a sly smile, which just looked wrong on him.
“Tom the hot stone reporting for duty,” Tom joked back as Unkai went about reapplying the bandage to the wound. Jacky’s gaze switching back to Tom seemingly excited, the edges of her mouth curling into a slight smile.
The young woman who had washed his clothes earlier had shown them up to the bedrooms after the quick check-up.
“We have a few rooms which weren’t in use before, don’t worry it’s not… someones. I'm sorry if they are dirty, but you can have one each if you want.” She sounded really rather uncomfortable. Tom could get why. He could see the number of rooms and there had to be at least a few that had owners until recently.
“This is very kind of you. Thank you,” Tom replied, the woman giving a curtsy before making her way back down the stairs rather hurriedly. Tom got out the notepad to ask Jacky if she wanted to share a room. Thinking back, that wasn’t at all necessary; he just felt like it was the right thing to at least ask.
Jackalope though didn’t bother to ask him. Taking him by the wrist rather firmly, she led him into the first room the young woman had shown them.

The Pancake Chapter: Pancake!
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Balethon now safely in her grasp, Sapphire circled back the way she came. She almost wanted to tell him to enjoy this since she was likely not gonna be carrying him again, not to mention at night in nothing but her underwear. The dude had already had a remarkably shitty night though, so she refrained.
She spotted the large disorganized group which had been supposed to keep the tavern safe. They had set down in a square and were looking around confused as Sapphire came in to land. She was quickly greeted by a near-hysterical Haiko who looked ready to drop his mace as he nearly trod on Balethon in an attempt to hug her faster.
“You’re okay, right? Nothing wrong?”
“I’m fine, the bastards couldn’t shoot.”
“Oh thank whoever cared,” he let out, squeezing her tightly.
“Where is Dakota?” Sapphire squeaked out from his embrace. He let go of her taking a step back looking around.
“Not here. Neither is that Maiko guy, and he damn near caught up to you before you shot off into the darkness. You haven't gotten any slower, have you now?”
“Not by much, no,” she replied, looking down to her stricken cargo. “Let’s get him to sit up somewhere. Any of you got some water?” she questioned, looking to the other guards. Her eyes landed on someone being bound up. She assumed it was the mercenary who had tried to attack her. “You're a shit fighter, I hope you know that,” She shouted out, glaring at the arsehole, who just stared at her with clear contempt.
Draki had come over with a canteen of water, looking up to Sapphire and looking a bit strained in the face before he turned to Haiko.
“I owe you two silver, don’t I?” the diminutive guy asked, seeming rather annoyed.
“I told you, she’s the fastest woman you ever saw,” Haiko replied with a smile, trying to fold out Balethon, eventually giving up. “Grab on, let’s put him on that bench over there,” he went, grabbing Balethon by the legs, with Sapphire taking the shoulders as they carried him over. He was stiff as a board, though the panicked look in his eyes was at least sort of gone.
“You put a bet on me catching them?” Sapphire questioned as set him down. She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or angry. Haiko held up his hands defensively, shaking his head.
“No no, Draki just didn’t believe all the stories, so I put two silver on the stories being true. Easiest bet ever.” That was more to Sapphire’s liking, and she gave him a slightly wicked smile. “You know we used to get a slice of the bets back then.”
“Hey, I got you your own personal protection service,” He replied, gesturing to the motley collection of dragonettes mulling about the square.
“That’s a word for it, I guess,” Sapphire replied, not overly impressed. It wasn’t like they had done much good tonight. “Take good care of him, I have some questions,” she went, leaving Haiko and going over to the now thoroughly tied up dragonette who had attacked her, the questioning already underway. Someone let out a suggestive growl as she walked by. The fact that she was wearing nothing but her underpants in the middle of the street dawning on her.
“Do that again and I’ll kill you,” she snarled, not sure who the offending member was, before turning her attention to the mercenary. “So… You thought kidnapping one of my friends was a good idea? How well would you say that went?” She questioned looking down at the piece of shit.
“Fucking brilliantly,” he responded angrily. “I ended up with a nice view if nothing else,” he continued with a shit-eating grin.
“How hard may I punch him?” She demanded, looking around at the guards. Most of them just looked confused at each other.
“As hard as I say so,” Maiko bellowed out, coming down alongside Dakota, who was carrying a very large unconscious female dragonette with an arrow sticking out of her back.
“Not your best shot, but it did the trick,” Dakota let out, unceremoniously dumping the dragonette on the ground before setting down. “Tie her up too, she won’t be out forever.”
After a bit they got the both of them tied up at about the same time as a contingent of city guards arrived, demanding to know what was going on. Sapphire cursed the fact she likely wouldn’t be allowed to beat the shit out of them now, as they began asking some very pointed questions.
“Oh yeah sure, a group of armed what was it... Tavern guards? Out at night with a pair of half-naked women and a dude who claims to be Royal Guard. And why has she been shot?!” the lead city guard questioned, looking around at them.
“Because she kidnapped him after stabbing him with vargulf poison,” Sapphire let out, wide armed. “How the fuck is that hard to understand!?”
“Calm down woman, who shot her?” the man questioned pointing at the female mercenary.
“I did and two other pieces of shit who tried to kill us!”
“Right, you're all coming with us. We need to know what happened here. Manacles,” the City Guard replied, snapping his fingers over his shoulder and receiving the item in question. Sapphire’s heart sank; she had never been arrested before. Closest she had ever gotten was being given a stern talking to for sneaking into the training fields.
Dakota looked ready with a reply, when Maiko beat her to it.
“Listen up you little shit-eating ground rat, see what this is?!” He went, holding up his sword, which true to form bore the royal insignia on the crossguard. “I will make a cape out of your fucking wings if you don’t man up and do your fucking job. These bastards attacked a tavern in the middle of the night, attempted murder, managed a kidnapping, then had a go at murder again during the desperate chase to catch them and your useless ass turns up just in time to insult the Royal Guard and be useless.”
“I’m gonna have to ask you to...” the city guard attempted to protest, though seemingly with a growing sense of apprehension.
“No, you may not. You are outranked! Or do I need to get the colonel to inform her the city guard is aiding an enemy of the crown? That would lead to some serious fucking cleansing of your unit, I can assure you of that!”
“In that case, I say we take you to the stockade and send for this colonel of yours, perhaps letting her know someone stole a blade from the Royal Guard armories.” Sapphire expected Maiko to explode at that insult, though he just pulled back with an evil smile.
“Very good sir, let’s go. Though I would appreciate the opportunity to get my uniform before appearing before my superior. You may escort me to the tavern in question if you wish.”
“That can be arranged, I assume you two wouldn’t mind getting dressed either, though I must insist on you accompanying us. Don’t we have a blanket or something?” he asked, looking back to his unit, eventually procuring a pair of thin woolen blankets.
“Bloody brilliant sir, how exactly do we fly with these?” Dakota questioned sounding very unimpressed.
“Uhm…”
As they were getting ready for takeoff Sapphire heard someone get a smack to the back of the head as she moved to check up on Balethon. Looking back, a slightly ashamed looking tavern guard was rubbing the back of his head, a very unimpressed woman standing next to him. ‘God fucking dammit’ she cursed to herself.
The ones who had woken up in the middle of the night broke off, going back to the tavern to get dressed in preparation for a long night. They wanted the bastards interrogated immediately anyway, even if getting interrogated themselves hadn't really been the plan. If this was the work of the Flaxens they would be doing their best to cover their tracks as soon as they learned of the mission's failure, so speed was of the essence.
“Why can’t we just be left in peace!” Dakota snapped as they were getting dressed. “Please let it just be the Flaxens so we can get them dealt with already.”
“Of course it’s them, who else could it be?” Sapphire dismissed her as she strapped on her greaves. Sapphire had a feeling Colonel Hashaw would not take kindly to this attack so she was bound to be there, therefore she needed to look proper in case they got fine company at the stockade.
Maiko had gone on to the Hashaw Estate to report back on the evening’s activities and hopefully convince Victoria to make an appearance. So Sapphire and Dakota found themselves standing in front of the stockade with a city guard escort.
It was a large, ugly building, looking like a place you wanted to avoid at all costs with its rough grey stone and metal barred cell windows lining the walls. “May they rot in here forever,” Sapphire let out as they were shown inside. She and Dakota were taken to different interrogation rooms. They were civil about it though, not even tying her up like she had feared.
The guy who had ‘caught them’ as he claimed was apparently in charge of this case. He formally introduced himself as Sergeant Lanok and set about asking questions, not many of which were intelligent. Where they were from, what they were doing here, why they had an armed escort in the middle of the night despite not even being properly dressed at the time.
He of course didn't believe most of the answers he was getting. Especially the part about being in the employ of the king at the moment, nor the whole Flaxen situation.
“What? You claim to be the target of a kidnapping attempt by a noble family, one on the council at that?! Give me a break,” Sapphire had to fight really hard not to slap him, but she didn’t want to end up in manacles, so she just stared at him contemptuously. Then there was a deep thunk that shook the building followed by creaking wood from above.
“This should be good,” Sapphire let out, leaning back with a smirk, relishing in the confusion on the guy’s face.
It took a bit longer than Sapphire had anticipated, as she refused to answer further questions, but there was eventually a knock on the door, Sergeant Lanok getting up to answer it. He was confronted by a very pissed looking Colonel Hashaw in formal uniform, Maiko and Yilditz at her back.
“You seem to have attempted to arrest one of my men and two people you really shouldn’t have. Not to mention waking both me and a decidedly grumpy 10 ton black dragon currently on your roof.”
‘So it wasn’t Baron then,’ Sapphire concluded. She doubted very much he could have been roused for this anyway, it also made sense to bring a black, they liked the night anyway. Maiko had been decent at laying out a string of insults, but Hashaw was clearly the source of his talent, as she chewed out not only the sergeant but anyone dumb enough to make an objection or not make themselves as small as they could including the captain of the Stockade much to Sapphire's horror.
It definitely helped that she was flanked by Ylditz, the person who had been tasked with finding out who the mercenaries were, as well as a few other family members. The dragon in question was apparently Tiguan, one of Jarix's training buddies. Sapphire guessed he was here just as much for a bit of experience then.
“Is there anyone dumb or useless enough in here to have anything more to say...? Very good. Where are the two who ‘actually’ need questioning?”
The tavern guards had been allowed to go, though Haiko had stuck around. The Sergeant was now looking very small as he took them to the room where the one who hadn’t been shot was sitting. The woman who had been carrying Balethon currently being treated.
“Do you have even the slightest idea how much you fucked up tonight?” Hashaw asked as she strode in the door, the sergeant holding it open for her.
“Pretty fucking badly I presume, but what the hell are you gonna do, huh? Gonna execute me, perhaps clip my wings? Doesn't matter if you’re Royal Guard or tavern guard the punishment is the same. So you don’t scare me woman or should I say… oh, Colonel, wow I really did fuck up, huh?” Well, Sapphire had to give it to him, he was taking the news that he was likely done for rather well, or perhaps he was just in denial about the whole thing.
“Oh, I can do worse than that I think. Sapphire, you wouldn’t happen to have learned a thing or two from our friend?”
“Might have done,” she admitted, thinking back to what she could remember of Tom’s escapades.
“Sergeant, what is the punishment for his crimes?”
“Well, he failed to kill anyone, hence he is charged with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping. So indentured servitude for quite a while. Unless he could pay for a prison sentence of course.”
“Right then, how about this? Tell me who sent you and I will pay for your prison time,” the colonel then went, looking to the perp. “I know you were hired to do this, so while you may be a piece of shit it’s not you that I want. Alternatively, I could start pulling strings until we get some alone time with you and make your life really fucking unpleasant.”
Sapphire looked slightly nervously to the sergeant, but he was still cowering, so she guessed Hashaw got away with threatening to break the law inside the stockade. It was a generous offer too. If this guy was going away for a long time, paying for it wasn’t gonna be cheap.
“You know my choice is death or slavery here. You can’t be dumb enough to believe they will let me live if I talk.”
“That depends on who sent you, because if it is who I think it is they won't be around to send someone to kill you after this.” Again Sapphire was fairly sure they couldn't condemn the entire Flaxen family for something like this, but hey if it works it works.
“You seriously think we take jobs directly? It’s not the client that will kill me dipshit. My boss would.” Hashaw was very clearly not pleased with that answer, as she turned to the sergeant.
“Would you agree this man is guilty, on the word of both independent tavern guards, the Royal Guard, and our two huntresses of the noble Bizmati Keep? Or do you insist on a mock trial for this piece of shit?”
The sergeant looked a tad bewildered for a second before nodding. “Yes ma’am. I’ll have him sent off to the deepest mine I can find tomorrow.”
“No, I want him handed over to the Royal Guard so we may question him as an enemy combatant.”
“You cannot do that and you know it,” the sergeant replied, finally standing up for himself. Clearly to Hashaw’s great annoyance.
“Then I want you to get me a telepath. Am I correct in assuming his rights on that matter are no longer in place even if I can’t pull his claws out?”
“Yes, but we don’t have one, ma’am. You must understand, a criminal’s mind is not exactly the kindest place to be.”
“Weak-minded cowards,” Hashaw cursed, looking away pondering. “Fine keep him here, you may continue with your excuse for questioning. I’ll be back, luckily not everyone is as weak of spine.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
So then We have prisoners to work with once again. hopefully, they will fare a little better than the last one. then again... Maybe not. As always do let me know what you thought down below be it good bad or just generally hilarious.
until next time, have an awesome day.

ko-fi For having more pretty pictures commissioned.
Sapphire
Wiki Discord
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Just in case you missed it, the pancake chapter: Pancake!

Dad advise

First Contact - Third Wave - Chapter 404

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General No'Drak had been a staff officer in the Confederate military for decades. He had started his staff officer career as the one star general in charge of the 4313rd Infantry Horde and slowly climbed the ranks. He had been given an opportunity to serve as the commander of the Smokey Cone Defensive Forces or taking command of the V Corps and a shot at commanding VII Army at a later date.
He had, of course, taken V Corps. An "Old Blood" unit was prestigious, but also had a mathematically measurable chance of being dropped into the fire. Chaos theory mathematics could account for why, once the phasic energy formula were added.
While holding the command was a pleasure, V Corps had a tendency to, well, roll hot.
Which is why he was nibbling at the tip of a bladearm as he stared at the holotank. He was not worried about the mopup of the Precursor machines. Trucker, Ekret, and A'armo'o had that well in hand and he knew they would all operate best if he merely observed from a distance.
No, it was a single icon.
1st Telkan Marine Corps, HHQ Battalion, HHC, 1st Platoon.
Of course, having Casey's icon attached just made it worse.
I have a Telkan who ignited a volcano that emits pure molten warsteel, No'Drak thought, staring at the tank as he slowly packed his cigarette pack. To top it off, I've got a human who is not only capable of detonating antimatter enhanced atomic weapons in a civilian populated area, but has shown his willingness by doing so when he felt there was no other choice.
He slowly opened the pack, using the gold winder thread to break the seal on the plastic. He carefully unwrapped the cellophane from the top as he stared.
Sergeant Addox isn't much better. His platoon was cut off for two weeks during the Second Telkan War and he got them all through it. Superficially, it looks good, but at the end they were all jacked up on stims to the point they were sweating amphetamines, he thought to himself. And it wasn't the first time Addox was cut off. During the Skalcupeck Rebellion he held together a patchwork force of miners, wildcatters, and logistics personnel for almost six months in a firebase that had been abandoned two decades prior until relief arrived.
He opened the pack, slowly withdrawing one cigarette, turning it over, and sliding it back into the pack.
The Telkans were pushed to the brink twice in less than a decade, and the two Terrans supporting them are both men with records that are worrisome apart and downright concerning together, No'Drak thought.
He slowly pulled a cigarette out, holding it in his mandibles as he put the pack away.
Glory isn't as innocent as her warsteel chassis might suggest. During the Unverak-7 Conflict she 'body swapped' twice into a lobotomized BOLO chassis and held the moon of Cultineeti virtually on her own, he thought. Three borderline red-line cases with a Telkan infantry platoon, beneath the surface of the planet, in what can only be a Mantid Precursor facility.
He withdrew his lighter, slowly opening it, and struck the wheel. The flame was blue with yellow edging.
Many of our allies believe that the Terran Confederacy believes in 'Victory at All Costs', when nothing could be further from the truth. There are members of our military that will go to any lengths necessary to survive and achieve victory, but we know well that the truth of victory lies in the proper application of force when necessary, No'Drak thought.
He lit the cigarette, puffing on it several times to ensure it was well lit. He felt the nicotine and other chemicals enter his system, bringing about a steady calm as his own pheromones were swept away.
But we fight the Precursors, who are hell bent on exterminating all life to conserve resources that they believe only they may possess, he took another long drag, only peripherally aware that the Lanaktallan officer Ge'ermo'o was watching him.
It is wars like this one that have battles where men like Casey and Addox and Glory shine. Where historians point at logistics, or enemy mistakes, or other factors, and ignore that Sergeant Addox and his men ate rock dust ran through a broken nanoforge for six months, No'Drak mused.
"General," one of the Military Intelligence analysts on the floor called up.
"Go ahead," No'Drak said, his voice steady and level, betraying none of his internal concern.
"Another data request from Sergeant Casey," the analyst said, as if it was the most banal thing in the world. "I've cross-checked with the Imperium forces and they have the data Casey is requesting."
No'Drak nodded, puffing out rings of smoke around his footpads. "What data is he requesting?"
"A First Mantid War Era linguistic codex," the analyst said. He consulted his screen. "Intelligence estimates a 85.5% chance that the facility is a Precursor Mantid facility with a 12% chance of being occupied. Currently the last estimation has jumped to 92%, based on observational data transmitted to 108th Military Intelligence."
"Toss the request transmission up to my tank, let me see it," No'Drak ordered, shuffling in place to turn and get a good look at the holotank.
A window opened up and No'Drak could tell it was being recorded from the internal cameras on Casey's faceshield. Casey was in the upper right of the picture, in a small window, while the rest of the window was panning over wreckage.
"Peak, Case here. Check this out. Mantid bodies, the majority of them the chitin exploded outward," the man was saying. His face was sweaty and the bottom of his eyepatch glittered red. "Check this out."
The window focused on an object that made No'Drak hiss and back up two steps. Ge'ermo'o made a bellows noise, inflating his crests.
It was a massive Speaker corpse. Well, the chitin that had hardened into resin-like epoxy, like amber from a hundred million years prior. The brain case was ruptured, same with the compound eyes, the rupturing obviously occuring by increased pressure internally. The view panned down the body, showing that the thorax and abdomen had suffered rupturing in a line.
"That's his primary phasic spinal trunk. Had to have been overloaded," Casey said. He took a swallow of water from a tube them grinned. "Wait to you see by who."
The view slowly moved upward and No'Drak realized with a shock that he was staring at a Mantid Queen's corpse, still hanging from the gantries and exuded biomatter. Her chest was slashed and punctured, her head had huge rips in it, both eyes were ripped from the sockets.
"She got ganked by her own people, babe. Her and the others," Casey said. The view panned across, showing a half dozen massive shadowed forms, one substantially larger than the others. "But that don't mean this place is empty, babe."
Casey took another hit off the water as the view changed, Casey moving. He knelt down, the angle changing, to show a small green Mantid running a welder along a pipe.
"Check him out," Casey said. "Watch for a moment, Peak. I don't think this has happened since the Mantid hit Earth."
Casey's psychic shielding dropped to only 60%.
The little green mantid suddenly stopped, shutting off the welder. It started to look around, the antenna lifting, its eyes seeking out the source of the disturbance.
It made a click and a chitter.
"Now watch this, Peak," Casey said. He moved back quickly, the psychic shielding rising back up to 125%.
The little green mantid stood still for a long moment, then the antenna drooped. It lifted the welder and began working again.
"Peak, babe, see if you can get me a Pre-War Mantid lexicon. Use 12Zip compression so it doesn't take a weak and I'm not running up a couple more processors off my poor cracked nanoforge," Casey said. "Got a feeling I'm gonna need it."
The one eyed human suddenly grinned. "Glad things are going good topside. We'll get out of this, you'll see, then we'll party like it's Ninety-Nine Ninety Nine. Stay safe, babe."
No'Drak thought over what he'd seen for a long moment.
"Transmit the lexicon as soon as you have it. Let's see how this pans out," No'Drak said.
The room went silent except for the muttering of the intelligence analysts.
"He seems unusually upbeat and high morale for someone who is trapped behind, or rather, underneath enemy lines," Ge'ermo'o suddenly said. "That is a statistical aberration that concerns me and makes me desire more data."
"It's not his first hyperjump," No'Drak said absently.
Ge'ermo'o thought about what was said before opening his mouth to protest that Casey was not engaged in a hyperjump. He realized that No'Drak was hyperjump as a metaphor for Casey having been behind enemy lines before.
Ge'ermo'o was proud of his deductive reasoning.
After all, he was a most observant commander.
No'Drak felt a chill run down his upper and lower spine.
"All units not engaged with Precursor elements are to pull back from the mountain range central hub by at least two hundred miles. Alert any shelters in the area to prepare for heavy seismic activity," he ordered.
He turned back to the holotank.
Casey's one-eyed mug grinned back at him.
--------------------
Vuxten watched Casey grin as he sat on the fallen gantry, working on something involving the minigun without even watching his hands.
"So, the kid, right? He goes to fifth grade, since his dad is doing better now with that new job, he doesn't have to attend eVR classes and goes to a meat school. The kid does amazing, top grades, really popular, wins some science awards, even has a girlfriend even though he's too young to know what to do with her," Casey was saying as he pulled the ammunition belt from the minigun.
Vuxten nodded, caught up in the joke again. Casey had started it over, to remind everyone what was going on, and it had taken nearly a half hour to get to this point. The entire time everyone was eating, drinking, and the little green battle buddies were huddled up to comfort each other after the shock of seeing the dead queens.
"So the end of the year gets there and the kid is like a rock star. Star of the school play, everything. His father comes up and goes 'My son, my beloved only son, you have surpassed all I have asked of you and more. What can I give you that you feel would reward your gallant efforts? A trip to Mouse World? A trip to Zaginaw Beach? A trip to see where the Yamato was lifted from the sea bed to add to the Black Fleet?' and the kid, right, the kid looks up, his face resolute, and says "A pink golf ball, father. That is all I wish, all I have worked so hard for.' So the father, right, he figures 'well, the kid is consistent if nothing else,' and gets him the golf ball."
Vuxten saw the light blinking on the little device Casey had on the thigh of his armored loading frame go from yellow flashing LEDs to solid green.
"Your thingamabob is done," Vuxten said.
"Hell yeah. Peak comes through again," Casey said, his grin getting wider. "Goddamn, that girl is too good for me."
Vuxten watched as he plugged the datacable into it and text flowed by on his visor, backwards from Vuxten's point of view.
"OK, she forwarded us lexicon. Two types. Imperial, Republic, and Combine codexes as well as Mantid Civil War lexicons," Casey said. "Catch."
The big human waved one armored hand and Vuxten's armor automatically accepted the download.
"Even got stuff for the greenies to talk to their brothers," Casey said. He tapped the side of his helmet and his visor went dark. He reached down, grabbed the ammo belt, and snapped the last round into the chamber.
"We're good to go, sir," he said, thumbing the self-check stud on the weapon.
It came back green.
Vuxten turned to Addox and PFC Thoral. "He still there?"
Addox didn't move, holding still. A little green mantis was standing on his helmet, working on a wire Casey had cut above Addox's head.
"Yes, sir," Thoral said. "Looks like he's getting the patch done."
"471, you guys all right?" Vuxten asked.
--shielded and ready-- 471 answered.
"Got the lexicon loaded?" Vuxten asked.
--roger roger-- 471 answered.
Vuxten triggered the Lexicon, watching his armor's computer systems bog down slightly until the computer addons that Casey had fabbed up and put in between the phasic disrupters took over.
**AWAITING INPUT** his suit stated.
"All right, Sergeant, like we said," Vuxten ordered.
"Dropping psychic shielding by one percent every two seconds," Addox said.
Vuxten caught himself holding his breath as the little green mantid kept working.
"Under one hundred percent load," Addox said. "Keeping the aux system on standby."
More seconds passed.
The little green mantid suddenly paused, its antenna lifting, trembling, as it turned its head to feel the air around it.
"Right there," Vuxten snapped.
"Sixty-two percent load," Addox said.
Vuxten moved up, kneeling down.
The little green mantid turned and looked at him.
"Take it easy. Give it a moment," Vuxten said softly. His suit speakers chirped and clicked.
The mantid shivered, antenna flicking, as it looked around slowly, the hard chitin covers of its eyes flicking back and forth as it was trying to clear debris.
"Can you understand me?" Vuxten asked.
The little mantid gave a few chirps and some clicks and Vuxten saw the sine wave for psychic emissions begin to dance.
--compensating-- 471 transmitted. --formal speak old old old--
"Let us try again. Can you understand me?" Vuxten asked softly.
"Affirmative," the little green worker chirped. "Free?"
"If you stay right there," Vuxten said.
"Free?" the worker chirped again. It put its tools away slowly, carefully, as if it was made of fragile glass. "Speak?"
"Yes, you can speak. You can speak to me," Vuxten said gently.
"Cold," the greenie said. It lowered its abdomen until it rested on the top of Sergeant Addox's helmet. "Warm here. Am cold, is warm. Stop work?"
"Yes," Vuxten said. He was sweating hard, his muscles trembling like he was engaged in combat, and he knew his anxiety monitors were peaking. Vuxten looked closer. The little green mantid had a powdery look to him, and he could see the veins were blue instead of a healthy brown color. He switched to Addox's channel. "Turn up your internal heat a degree or two, he's cold."
"Roger that, sir. I'll dump nanoforge heat," Addox said.
"Is good," the little green mantid said after a moment.
Vuxten lifted his knife, where he had a small piece of meat that 471 had run off of the nanoforge on Casey's armor.
"Food," Vuxten said.
The little greenie reached forward carefully, stabbing the meat with its bladearms and bringing it up to its mouth. It began munching and paused.
"Is real meat? Is good," it said.
"Turkey is delicious," Vuxten said, feeling slightly foolish at repeating 471's comment.
"More?" it asked.
Vuxten held out another strip of it and the little greenie took it.
"Cannot hear others," it said. "Lonely."
Vuxten switched channels. "That's your cue," he told 471.
The other mantid moved out of the shelter, heavy psychic shielding on his helmet. It moved up, crawling quickly up Vuxten's armor to stand on its head.
"Oh. Another," the little one said. It hid the turkey strip behind its thorax.
Vuxten watched as the two started comparing mathematical formulae rapidly, almost too fast for his suit's computers to keep up. Complex theorems and long formulae that Vuxten didn't even bother to try to decipher.
"If we let him go, he will get smothered. He cannot think, cannot report anything but equipment and machine statuses," 471 said over the translator. "He says there's something called the phasic hive mind augmenter still running, still doing the job of the queens."
"Can he show us where it is? Where the computer core is?" Vuxten asked.
More formula.
"Yes. Can show. More turkey?" the little green one asked.
Vuxten handed him another piece of turkey.
"Will ride here. Is warm. Am cold," the greenie said. It pointed with a bladearm. "Direction."
"He says the computer core and the phasic system is that way. We'll ask him more on the trip," Vuxten said, standing up. "Addox, he's gonna ride on your head."
"As long as he doesn't start talking about pink golf balls," Addox grumbled.
----------------------
MANTID FREE WORLDS
Did anyone else hear that?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Hear what?
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
MANTID FREE WORLDS
I could have sworn I heard a tiny voice say that turkey is delicious.
It's probably nothing. I'm still stressed over what the Lanaktallan have been doing with all those resources.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
TREANA'AD HIVE WORLDS
Well, the voice isn't wrong. Turkey is delicious.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
LEEBAW CONTEMPLATION POOL
It very much is.
---NOTHING FOLLOWS---
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[Results] How Does Shaving My Head Affect My Physical Attractiveness (Everyone 18+)

Hello, all
Last week I posted a survey asking for people to compare my attractiveness before and after I shaved my head. Thank you all who took the time to participate. As promised, here are the results.
Here are the images for reference: Imgur Gallery
Some people pointed out that I'm smiling more in the bald pictures and that the angles are different. Whoops. I tried to keep them as consistent as I could, but unfortunately, I didn't notice these issues. They may have skewed the results. Another issue that people raised is that my hairstyle isn't that flattering to begin with. Not going to a barber in almost a year tends to do that.
If you want to see the questions, you can find them here: Form Analytics
Note that the respondents randomly chose which set they would see first, the hair images or the bald image. I wanted respondents to flip a coin to get a 50/50 split, but that didn't work out (it was closer to 60/40; looks like some folks just chose the first option). u/qwezdie suggested asking for the respondents birth month and using that. Pretty good idea to keep in mind.

Results

To prevent this post from bloating, I'm only going to include what I consider to be the highlights of the results. I didn't include "Genderfluid", "51-60", and "61+" in individual rows because unfortunately there were too few results.
I've also included a "Target Demographic" row which is for those that I'm attracted to.

Respondents Count

This table shows how many respondents participated in the survey and which paths they took. If you look at the form analytics, you would see that there were 1844 responses, but only 1830 here. As I was reading the responses, I found 12 duplicate entries and 2 troll responses. I removed these to improve the quality of the results.

	Count - Hair First	Count - Bald First
All	1126	704
Target Demographic	365	228
Attracted to Men	651	421
Not Attracted to Men	440	263
Male	541	313
Female	524	337
Non-Binary	47	42
Bisexual	291	183
Asexual	28	32
Pansexual	55	46
Heterosexual Male	379	212
Heterosexual Female	245	156
Homosexual Male	60	36
Homosexual Female	33	19
18-24	652	385
25-30	284	208
31-40	145	84
41-50	30	21

Attractiveness Rating

This table shows how the average ratings on a scale of 1-10.
First impressions matter, folks. With one exception, my average attractiveness decreased when respondents saw the second set.
Based on first impressions, I was deemed more attractive bald than with hair.

	Hair First - Attractiveness	Bald Second - Attractiveness	Bald First - Attractiveness	Hair Second - Attractiveness
All	6.79	6.25	6.98	6.45
Target Demographic	6.93	6.19	7.09	6.64
Attracted to Men	6.88	6.28	7.04	6.57
Not Attracted to Men	6.64	6.17	6.91	6.26
Male	6.67	6.19	6.85	6.34
Female	6.91	6.27	7.09	6.56
Non-Binary	6.94	6.74	7.02	6.31
Bisexual	6.77	6.26	7.07	6.59
Asexual	6.79	5.82	7.28	6.97
Pansexual	6.89	6.84	7.15	6.26
Heterosexual Male	6.64	6.20	6.86	6.22
Heterosexual Female	6.98	6.23	6.97	6.71
Homosexual Male	7.03	6.12	7.03	6.31
Homosexual Female	6.55	6.21	6.84	5.53
18-24	6.80	6.23	7.01	6.38
25-30	6.82	6.17	6.93	6.59
31-40	6.73	6.38	7.14	6.48
41-50	6.57	6.63	6.52	6.05

Age Guesses

This table shows respondents guesses at my age from a range of 18-35. The correct answer was 22 years. A lot of people were apologetic if they guessed too high.
In general, shaving my head increased my age appearance by about a year.
Of note, the older someone was, the higher someone would guess my age was.

	Hair First - Age	Bald Second - Age	Bald First - Age	Hair Second - Age
All	25.44	26.45	26.16	25.43
Target Demographic	25.34	26.44	26.26	25.51
Attracted to Men	25.56	26.60	26.34	25.60
Not Attracted to Men	25.30	26.23	25.83	25.11
Male	25.37	26.30	25.88	25.24
Female	25.56	26.65	26.39	25.56
Non-Binary	24.79	25.70	26.45	25.43
Bisexual	25.44	26.52	26.12	25.21
Asexual	25.29	26.82	25.88	25.13
Pansexual	25.07	25.87	26.43	25.78
Heterosexual Male	25.29	26.13	25.80	25.09
Heterosexual Female	25.88	26.87	26.66	25.89
Homosexual Male	25.30	26.60	25.97	26.06
Homosexual Female	25.36	26.79	26.05	25.26
18-24	24.97	26.10	25.70	25.03
25-30	25.76	26.68	26.60	25.83
31-40	26.39	27.32	27.10	25.99
41-50	27.40	27.83	26.48	26.19

Swiping

The next two tables show how the respondent would swipe one of the front-facing photos was included in a dating profile.
Reminder that swiping right indicates "Interested" while swiping left indicates "Not Interested".
The respondents could also choose between "Would Look at Other Pictures or Bio Before Deciding" and "I'm not Interested in Men".
There were some recommendations at the end of the survey to add options for "Outside of my Age Range" and "I Wouldn't Use a Dating App". Unfortunately, I saw these too late to add them.
For most demographics, if respondents saw my hair pictures first, they were more likely to swipe right and less likely to swipe left than if that had seen my hair pictures second.

	Hair First - Right	Hair Second - Right	Hair First - Left	Hair Second - Left
All	17.05%	10.94%	7.10%	13.21%
Target Demographic	26.03%	16.67%	8.22%	19.30%
Attracted to Men	25.65%	16.63%	10.29%	18.76%
Heterosexual Female	25.71%	19.87%	6.53%	16.67%
Homosexual Male	40.00%	22.22%	11.67%	25.00%
Non-Binary	19.15%	4.76%	6.38%	23.81%
Bisexual	23.71%	13.11%	13.40%	20.22%
Pansexual	20.00%	15.22%	9.09%	15.22%
18-24	15.95%	9.87%	6.29%	15.32%
25-30	17.61%	12.98%	7.39%	10.58%
31-40	22.76%	11.90%	8.28%	11.90%
41-50	10.00%	9.52%	10.00%	9.52%

Just like with the hair pictures, if respondents saw my bald pictures first, they were more likely to swipe right and less likely to swipe left than if that had seen my bald pictures second. This further supports that the order of the sets had a strong impact on the results.

	Bald First - Right	Bald Second - Right	Bald First - Left	Bald Second - Left
All	11.08%	10.12%	5.11%	16.79%
Target Demographic	16.23%	12.05%	6.58%	25.48%
Attracted to Men	17.10%	15.05%	7.13%	25.19%
Heterosexual Female	17.31%	11.02%	7.69%	26.94%
Homosexual Male	25.00%	21.67%	5.56%	35.00%
Non-Binary	9.52%	17.02%	9.52%	10.64%
Bisexual	15.30%	16.84%	8.74%	23.71%
Pansexual	17.39%	16.36%	0.00%	14.55%
18-24	10.13%	9.36%	5.97%	16.10%
25-30	12.50%	9.51%	4.81%	19.37%
31-40	11.90%	16.55%	2.38%	15.86%
41-50	14.29%	6.67%	4.76%	10.00%

Quick Stats

Some other stats that I wanted to showcase:

81.25% of respondents who saw me bald first said that I could pull it off
57.37% of respondents who saw me bald second said that I could pull it off
6.22% of respondents who saw me bald first said that it was a mistake
21.58% of respondents who saw me bald second said that it was a mistake
9 respondents who said they never considered shaving said they are now strongly considering it
68 respondents who said they never considered shaving said they might now consider it

Respondents who had more familiarity (at the lack of a better word) with baldness were more likely to give me higher ratings and come closer to guessing my age when looking at my bald photos than others. By familiarity, I mean those who were bald themselves, had a bald partner, knew multiple bald people, etc.

Look-a-Likes

I asked respondents if I reminded them of anyone. They could have been real or fictional.
For my hair pictures, the most common answers responses were:

Linus Sebastian (Linus Tech Tips) - 12
Eddie Redmayne - 9
Willem Dafoe (Green Goblin from Spiderman 2002) - 8
Ron Weasley - 6
Jerma985 - 6
Henry Cavill (Superman, Witcher) - 6
Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux from Star Wars) - 5
Damian Lewis (Bobby Axelrod from Billions) - 4
Paul Bettany (Vision) - 4
Shaggy - 4

Honourable mentions that made me laugh:

Adolf Hitler before he escaped Germany
Amy Adams (not sure if this was genuine or a troll, still made me laugh)
Bruce Willis and Tom Holland's Scottish-Scandinavian Love Child
Charming guy from the office that the new girl gets a crush on until she finds out I'm married

Interestingly, Willem Dafoe and Henry Cavill were only suggested by respondents who saw me with hair first.
For my bald pictures, the most common were:

Lex Luthor - 53
Agent 47 (Hitman) - 36
Mr. Clean - 30
Seth Everman - 15
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson - 11
Neo-Nazi / Skinhead - 11
Johnny Sins - 10
Lord Voldemort - 9
Anthony Carrigan (NoHo Hank from Barry, Victor Zsasz from Gotham) - 9
John McAvoy (Split) - 7

Honourable mentions that made me laugh:

Adolf Hitler after he escaped Germany
Gollum
Lizard Person
A Thumb

The only people who were suggested at least twice in both the hair and bald photos were Adam Samberg and Paul Bettany. I'm guessing this is because they've both been bald for parts of their careers.
Some respondents put down that I looked like an acquaintance or that I looked familiar, but they couldn't place it. The amount of responses like this were about 2-3 times as common in the first sets compared to the second sets.

Recommend Hairstyle

I also asked respondents for recommended hair styles. I didn't get a consensus. It was a good mix of "grow it out" and "keep it short". A common recommendation was that I grow out a beard if I decided to keep it bald. I'll tell you now that I don't need a survey to know that me trying to grow out a beard isn't going to work out.
The most common recommendation, however, was to go with whatever I was more comfortable with and that I liked the most.

Closing Thoughts

Some people asked if there was a specific reason I decided to do shave my head. A few guessed that I was worried about a natural receding hairline or partial baldness. This isn't the case. It was a genuine question of "could I pull off the bald look" which I've had for a while. Just in case I couldn't, I wanted to do it while my company still had me working from home.
I'm guessing that some people got the impression that I was balding naturally because I included some questions about partial hair loss. In retrospect, I shouldn't have included those questions since I didn't end up using those answers.
To the person who's neighbour was using their snow blower at 9 pm, I agree that this is pretty late, but we must understand that some people have vastly different schedules and so 9 pm may have been the only time available when they could deal with their snow.
To the person who's cat lost a tooth, I hope they're doing well.
Reminder that the tables in this post are only highlights. If you're interested in a more specific demographic, please reply to this post with your question. I'm happy to share.
Thank you again to everyone who took this survey. I had a lot of fun examining this data and reading everybody's submissions. Ultimately, I've decided to grow my hair back out, because as much as I liked the bald look, it didn't allow for any variety.

Community gift subs killed my community; A warning.

Hi y'all I'm here to share an problem I have faced and after speaking to a few other female streamers, it seems to be a normal problem. There shall be no links or sales pitches and this is on a throwaway. This is also going to be a very long post.
To begin - If you are doing twitch solely for income, there is nothing wrong with that and this warning will not apply to you. If you are trying to build a community please read on. This is also mostly directed at female streamers, I am one myself, but good knowledge all around.
I'm a mid-20's part time streamer while I go to school during the day. I started streaming over a year ago. Things went well; I had an active community both on and off twitch. My twitch income was low but it was never the main focus of my stream. Unfortunately I'm a poor college student so every sub and every bit warmed my heart. I got pretty close to partner, just shy of an average number of viewers. I started a push with some goals and incentives to hit partner!
I never hit partner.
During a personal celebration stream I had someone come into chat and after posting come cute animal emotes from the other women he's subscribed to, I welcomed him in with open arms as I would anyone else. Then he gifted 100 community subs. He spoke altruistically about how my community seemed fun and he wanted to support me and my community. Everyone was hype! In my stomach I felt strange that someone came in and spent that much on my stream but gift subs were normal in my stream and even an inside joke to a degree.
I kept an eye on this new person wondering what would make someone spend that much on someone they'd watched for only a few hours. He spoke about his job and he was very open about exactly what he did. In an effort to not doxx myself or said person, let's just say it was one of those jobs that the general public assumes anyone working in makes fat bank. He had spending money and seemed to be an adult not spending his last few dollars for attention. He never made any overtly creepy comments and we often spoke about adult things. No boundaries were ever crossed.
It got weird after a few months. Around the beginning of each month he'd gift another hundred or so subs. He'd sometimes treat me like a dancing monkey asking "what is your favorite drink" "what is your favorite pizza" "what's your favorite meal" "what games have you been wanting", all innocuous questions but then he would almost always immediately donate through paypal to cover the costs for any of these things. It reminded me of when I'd be out at a bar drinking with friends and a man would come up to me and ask me nearly the same thing as an ice breaker to then buy me a drink or meal. I would often tell these men no but these are usually the type of men to not take a stern no for an answer. This isn't a flex by any means. I don't want to be someone's sugar baby, I came on twitch to build a community and maybe make money.
I believe Community subs were built for big streamers, the streamers with hundreds if not thousands of viewers. Community gift subs are not really that great for someone with less than a hundred viewers. As a celebration or one-off thing they can be fine but they were almost all handed out to bots or people who had likely opened my stream and closed it. Even worse they were often handed out to people who had followed and unfollowed. I can't begin to count how many times we had people follow and unfollow only to follow again (presumably out of guilt) when they were gifted a sub.
Long gone were the days that I'd had people making friends in chat anymore. All of my regulars slowly disappeared and all the newcomers sort of worshipped this guy. They called him generous, they called him epic, they thanked him and acted as if they were friends.
Nobody was friends with this guy. Not even me. I realized far too late he'd basically forced his way into my community. He started suggesting games for me to play and just like the men at the bar who didn't know how to take a soft no as an answer, he'd offer to pay for them. I'd naïvely added him on steam so I was constantly gifted games he'd love to see me play.
How do you say no to any of this? This isn't someone outright giving me money asking for nudes back. This isn't someone who is afraid to talk about how much he makes or spends. He was always telling me how many subs he gifted in other channels. Maybe as a brag or maybe an attempt to make me jealous. Or even worse maybe in an attempt to make me beg for those subs myself.
Streaming albeit profitable is no longer fun. Do you remember in old movies when there was often a woman singing alone on a stage and a man would walk into the jazz club and start flaunting his wealth an an attempt to woo her? That's what streaming feels like now. I no longer know anyone in my community. My dreams of reaching partner are dead as I have no desire to stream anyway. Whenever I do stream I feel more like this guy is now my pimp and he's never done ONE actual bad thing.
I've reached out to a few other female streamer friends and quite a few have very similar stories. I've come to realize a lot of these men talk like dads in chat. RANDOMLY.......capitalizing WORDS.....and using.....A LOT.....of ellipses. Once they stop using the cute animals or cute girl emotes from the streamers they subscribe to. I could theorize all day long if they have some sort of father-daughter fetish where they really want to take care of a much younger woman, but it also may just be someone who is socially dumb and believes money will solve everything.
Community gift subs alone have scared off all of my regulars. Now my chat is constantly full of people asking me who I am, following me, then thanking the very generous man who gifted them a sub and pulled them into my stream. I'm constantly getting notifications that I was gifted a sub from the same man to another woman's stream. Another common thread I found was they love to intertwine their favorite streamers. In the same way they'll push hard for you to play their favorite game and they're often not really gamers themselves, at the end of a stream when you start looking to raid someone they're quick to pipe up with a few names of people who they do the same thing to.
Beyond killing my own community, I can no longer recommend my friends who were often female as this same guy would go into their chat and gift their community another hundred subs. To see that unawareness and excitement upon getting that breaks my heart. If this guy stays and does the same thing to me as he did to them, I'd never wish that on a friend. It's not like I can pass him off to someone else either as he already seemingly does this to a handful of other women.

So now I write this as a eulogy for my streaming dreams on twitch. I'll never make partner. I can't just outright ban this man as he's given me so much money and I have no real reason to ban him. My discord is bare and any time I post in there to liven it up he hits back with some caring type message. I cannot talk about anything without some overtly nice input from him. I was naive in the beginning and didn't have a business paypal so he knows my full name. I've deleted my social media accounts under my real name as I never want this man to follow me off the platform. I tried to remove different aspects from my stream that even remotely incentivized money. Turned off hype train, got rid of paypal, even turned off on stream notifications. Nothing worked. He just wants to give me money. Which from the outside doesn't sound like much of a problem but it is. No longer do I have friends in chat jokingly giving bits or subs to friends. My entire stream is under his thumb and if he decides to leave then I'm back at square one as my community has been gutted. I suspect this guy with his job that you have to be pretty intelligent to partake in knows all of this too. My stream is now his.
So my only option is to quit and maybe someday stream under a new name and without a webcam. I only want this to serve as a warning to anyone else who finds themselves with someone like this in their stream. Maybe you can nip it in the bud, lest you find yourself as a dancing monkey for one wealthy man.
After reaching out to friends we realized a few things as well. Gifting 100 subs will give an affiliate around $250 in revenue and cost the gifter around $550 dollars. Whereas they could buy 25,000 twitch bits which will give the streamer $250 but only cost the bit-gifter around $350. These are already insane amounts but why would you spend $200 more dollars to give the streamer the same amount of revenue. In most cases it's a celebration of community and gives back and helps build a community.
In this case, it killed my community and made this man the one and only OG of my stream and he's likely fully aware of it. All while never actually doing anything wrong. Lots of love and be safe XOXO

Lung's reputation, fanon vs canon

I recently ended up doing some reading regarding Lung's reputation, in part because of a piece of fanfic I read, and in part so that I could characterise him for a work I've been planning. I was aware that fanfic tends to exaggerate Lung's reputation (The phrase "Dragon of Kyushu" is entirely fanon - Your average person in Brockton Bay has no idea that Lung fought Leviathan), but I hadn't realised how bad it was.
My actual read, having done some skimming for Lung's appearances, and discussions about him, is that Lung is, if anything, massively underestimated by the population of Brockton Bay. I'm kind of just throwing this out there so that someone can shout out if I've gone too far the other way, because there's no easier way to get information than being wrong on the internet.
Taylor serves as our 'Joe Public' character for parahumans. She's pretty ignorant on the cape scene (She didn't really think about how Armsmaster was a Tinker until she was talking to him) and she needed Trigger events explained. As a general rule of thumb, it seems safe to take her as somewhat representative of the general public. And how does she rate Lung?

How was this monster not an A-Lister?

Taylor definitely doesn't think much of Lung. When she first encounters him, she's explicit that she doesn't consider him an A-lister. But what's interesting is that she actually uses this terminology elsewhere. Uber and Leet get described as 'barely even' B-list. Grue and Bitch were 'marginally successful B-list villains'. That seems to be the tier that Lung gets sorted into. He's a villain she's heard about, and the leader of a big gang, but she doesn't seem to treat him as a big deal, personally. She's shocked by how powerful Lung is when Lung is only about 8 feet tall. That's nothing compared to his actual potential, and it's still more than she expected him to be capable of.
The PRT & Protectorate don't seem to view Lung that highly, either, despite numerous fanfics depicting Armsmaster or the Wards expressing shock that Taylor took him out. Officially, he's a Brute 4-9, which means that they think he can be defeated by a squad of troopers, so long as they do it at the start of a fight. He's officially not even worth sending parahumans up against if he's not already ramped up.
And the villain scene don't seem to respect him that much either. In the confrontation in Hive, we see Kaiser use his power to lock himself, Fenja and Menja into a building with Lung, with the intent of killing him. That seems to be going pretty well, because Lung tears down a wall to escape, and stumbles on to Skitter. Once he does, Kaiser refuses help from Skitter

“Step down, Undersider,” Kaiser spoke from the opposite end of the room, “My girls and I have this in hand.”

That's a level of confidence that is entirely incongruous with fanon Lung. At this point, Lung is 15 feet tall, he's got wings and he's almost definitely the second most powerful parahuman in the Bay in a straight fight (Beaten only by Noelle), and Kaiser (who is meant to be a smart guy, IIRC) still thinks he can take him.
But then, the Undersiders don't seem all that scared of him either. Fanfic likes to present them as desperate in the face of Lung coming at them, but that's not really the vibe you get from the actual text.

“When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we’d meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah.”

That doesn't read terrified to me. "Pretty freaked" is still relatively mild if Lung is treated as a massive deal. And, at the end of the day, their plan was for a team with only one heavy hitter to fight him.

"Anyways, point of this explanation is this: Knowing we had an imminent fight with Lung coming, knowing Lung planned to pyrokinesis our general area until he rooted us out, got civilians to finger us or brought in enough capes to make life difficult for us, I called Coil. He said he’d help, told us to wait five minutes, then take the more direct route, straight into the heart of ABB territory. We go, we take out a contingent of ABB gangbangers and scare off Oni Lee. Then I get a call back from Coil. The other reality? We left earlier, went a different route. Got in a fight with Lung before you showed. You decided to attack both our groups while we were occupied fighting each other, worn out, only Lung was stronger at that time, too strong for you to do too much. By the time you realized you’d have to work with us to stop him, which wasn’t long, it was too late. Lung was too tough."

There's two interesting bits in here. One, Lung would need to 'bring in' capes to make it difficult for the Undersiders. Lisa doesn't think he's enough on his own, apparently. Two, Coil didn't use his power to help them escape. He used it aggressively. At least one split was dedicated to two separate attack plans. And sure, maybe he gave them an escape route after closing the first timeline, but I think it's telling that he was willing to use his power and the Undersiders so aggressively. If he thought they were entirely outmatched, a 5 minute head start doesn't seem like enough.
His record is also not as clear as fanfic tends to make it. We know from Ward that he managed to beat the local Protectorate team, with 10-15 minutes build-up time. But, we're also told that he's been beaten repeatedly.

According to the wiki, Lung had apparently suffered a number of minor defeats at the hands of various teams, ranging from the Guild to the local teams of New Wave, the Wards and the Protectorate, but consistently managed to evade capture until last night.

I'm interested in hearing more about him being beaten by New Wave, the Wards and the Protectorate. Is that all at once? Or is it that he's been run off by the Wards on their own at some point?
There's a comment from Wildbow that emphasises his low ambition:

Lung has a high classification but a relatively low level of ambition. He had one powered minion (until early 2011 when he recruited Bakuda) and sought primarily to hold the docks as his territory. He ruled like a lesser king, had prostitutes and sex slaves, a protection racket and drug dealing, but he wasn’t fighting for a footing downtown.
For all his (potential) power, he’d settled into a role as a street thug and gang leader.

Overall, my conclusion is that Lung is vastly more powerful than Brockton Bay gives him credit for, but because he sticks to the poorer areas of town and doesn't contest the prime territory, he's more significant as "the leader of the ABB" than he is as a parahuman threat. The impressive thing that Skitter did wasn't beating him in a fight, it was doing it in such a way that he was there long enough to be arrested.
On the other hand, Worm is big and I can guarantee I've missed some things.

Introduction to Human Biology 110 (Final)

Just want to start off by saying never thought it’d take me this long to write this. I’m still not entirely satisfied with it but at this point, I might never be so; might as well post it. I want to thank everyone who’s read up to this far, never expected this idea to take off like it did. I don’t think I can add more to it though but if anyone feels like sharing their head canon to what happens afterwards, I’d be delighted to read it and endorse it.
First / Previous
Without further ado, the last chapter of Intro to Human Biology.
------------------------------------------------
Running down the corridor, Jean-Francois looked behind every so often to make sure those strange plant aliens were not following him. Many thoughts raced in his mind, such as the fate of the alien that had been absorbed by the plant-like lifeform but for the sake of his sanity, he tried to clear his brain of it.
This side of the station seemed almost deserted; having only come across glimpses of three other alien’s backs as they ran in other directions than him. Seeing no one else head towards where he was heading worried him somewhat but it remained the best course of his action in his mind.
Soon, he reached the dome’s entrance and found the doors to be unlocked, to his relief.
The Dome was rather quiet as he opened the doors, most had fled the open area to hide elsewhere. Still, a few sat at the bar; either oblivious to the situation or without a care in the world.
Jean-Francois paid them no attention and headed straight for his goal, the steelsuit hangar.
Unluckily however, these doors were locked and he had no idea how to open them. After fiddling with the electronic box next to the door to no avail, he opted to try and find someone from the teams in order to open the doors and so headed for the bar area.
On second thought, perhaps it was onerous to associate it as a bar area since alcohol was clearly not part of any creature on board's diet. What else would one call a half moon crescent counter where customers sat and drank; a juice bar?
Once there, he quickly recognized one of the regulars. "Hey, you're uhh… the Daemead, Simiret? Lso'na team pilot right?"
He hoped it was indeed the right person and he hadn't just done the faux pas of essentially saying they all looked alike.
The Daemead lowered its beverage and squinted at the human. "It's Similriet, human. What are you doing here anyways? Don't you know we're getting boarded as we speak?"
"Exactly! I had an idea. We can use the Steelsuit to destroy their spaceship. It has to be docked somewhere on the station. Then, with no way to retreat, we'll be in a good position to negotiate." Exclaimed Jean-Francois, full of enthusiasm.
The Daemead sighed. "They'll be gone soon anyways, why go through all this risk? Just sit here, have a drink and wait for all this to blow over."
Jean-Francois shook his head negatively. "I just left class to go to the bathroom. I came across one of those raiders on the way back. I have to do something, I can't let them do anything to the class.
"Argh, you persistent human. I won't let you drag me into this. Here, you can go be a heroic suicidal wannabe hero on your own." Similriet handed him a small flat and circular shaped metal object. “That’s the authentication key you’ll need to open up the hangar doors. Steelsuit itself isn’t locked up.”
Jean-Francois hastily grabbed the offered object and uttered a quick thanks before he sprinted towards the hangar, key in hand. The doors opened without a fuss and he darted straight to the familiar steelsuit he piloted the other day.
A bit like driving for the second time, Jean-Francois tried to remember exactly how it was done the first time around but with limited success. He’d gotten in, managed to get into the seat but was at a loss on how to proceed further. Only difference was that it had already been started for them that time, they had only needed to get in. Time was ticking and the added stress did not help; making a pressured Jean-Francois look around wildly in order to figure out how to start the damn thing.
As frustration mounted and turned into despair, a voice called out to him. “Figures. Move over, I'll show you how it's done.”
Similriet climbed aboard and began the sequence to activate the steelsuit. “Now go fetch me my chair, this thing’s way too big for me.”
In the Classroom
Lso’na was still not quite over the fact that little Barry over there, nearly half her height and likely no more than a third of her weight, had managed to whip himself up in a frenzy and overpower those pirates. She felt somewhat conflicted over the matter; as she loved the general idea of someone saving the damsel in distress but also guilty because if it were not for her presence, they likely would have avoided this particular classroom. Being the most valuable hostage, aside from her father, on the station meant that she felt particularly targeted by these recent events.
“So, this is done for now but we should probably head somewhere else no?” Laura asked the teacher.
Mrs Moldrin, still digesting the violence that had occured in her classroom, acknowledged Laura’s idea. “I’m afraid you might be right. I have no idea what the other pirate’s reaction would be to what has happened here but I cannot presume to think it would be...civil. We must seek refuge elsewhere.” Taking a pause, she then spoke to Izumi. “How is Barry doing? Is his state stable?”
Izumi, who was checking up on Barry, left his side and approached the front of the class, looking at Mrs Moldrin. “He’s alright, for now. It’ll get better with time. Can you give us any more information about the pirates? Are they a type of plant species like they seem? Anything about their biology you could explain?”
“I fail to see how it will help but very well. Let’s move first and then I’ll tell you everything I know about the Yishanee. There is a room not too far from here where we store seldom used objects that still have a purpose.” Mrs Moldrin headed for the door, opening it slightly and peeked outside. Satisfied, she waved the class to follow her.
The giant conga line of students slipped out of the classroom towards the small storage room, fitting inside but being rather cramped. Everyone held their breaths, listening and watching for any possible sign that they were heard or seen coming here. Seconds turned into minutes as students slowly lowered their guard and began talking among themselves in hushed tones.
The humans gathered around Mrs Moldrin and Lso’na made sure she stood not much further away. She had to admit that she liked the way that humans tended to find themselves in the middle of every situation, poised to take on leadership roles or just get stuff done. Looking at her fellow students, she was disappointed by their lack of action. However, she understood that many of them were simply raised this way.
“Let me see what I can remember about the Yishanee.” Began Mrs Moldrin. “They initially evolved as patient predators, ambushers of sorts. By standing very still, they could become invisible to the local fauna that had mainly a movement based vision.”
“So, kind of like carnivorous plants?” inquired Izumi.
“Well, their diet was complimented by this, their main way to gain energy however was and remains photosynthesis. Some believe it is that extra addition of energy, from their ambushes, that enabled them to develop further motor functions and eventually become mobile.”
Laura twirled a finger in her hair and seemed lost in thoughts. “Interesting. This gives me an idea.”
Izumi prodded Laura for more. “Well? Can you tell us more?”
“It’s coming together in my head. We’re going to need bait, access to the electrical grid and a room.”
Lso’na was quite intrigued by Laura’s demands and plan but felt a tinge of worry when both human girls turned to look at her simultaneously.
-------------------------------------
“Do you even have any idea where the pirate ship could be? Dare I remind you again of the size of this space station?” asked Similriet with annoyance dripping from his every word.
“Uhh, well, I would say not too far from the classrooms I think. Alarm sounded just before they were seen there. Now, where that is exactly from the outside, I’ve no idea.” replied Jean-Francois, a bit defeated.
The steelsuit piloted by the Daemead was progressing smoothly, it’s magnetic leg locks behaving well and the small pilot’s skill was apparent with how much ground they were covering. Jean-Francois had set up on the weapons, ready for a fight that had yet to come.
“Look, even if we find it, those lasers are tuned down quite a lot, we’re not going to do much damage to that ship.” remarked Similriet.
Jean-Francois nodded. “There’s a good chance the laser might not work, true. If that happens then we can just use brute force.”
When realization of what the human meant came to Similriet, it hit him like a train. “You don’t mean..they’re just gonna shoot us before we get to do what you think we’re going to do!”
“If they’re docked, it’ll be mighty hard to do. If they undock to shoot at us, that means the pirates are stuck on the station and no one is getting kidnapped. Then it’s just a matter of time until we get reinforcements right?”
“You make it sound cut and dry! It’s hardly anything but a foolproof plan. I...look, don’t talk anymore, you’re going to give me an aneurysm.” Similriet shook his head to try and change his train of thought. The worst part was that the way the human explained, it was starting to make sense to him but he knew it was folly. Somehow though, Jean-Francois had managed to plant a seed in his mind that this was actually possible to pull off.
Having adjusted the steelsuit’s trajectory, the Daemead kept an eye out over the horizon, looking for anything that might feel out of place. The longer they could manage to stay undetected, the best their odds were.
If they managed to actually pull it off though, commendations would be thrown their way. Perhaps the prestige and fame from this would be enough to earn his citizenship back.
A few minutes later, the Yashinee ship was finally within view. Carefully, Similriet positioned the steelsuit so that it blended with external equipment from the station, using it as cover as they approached.
The Daemead exhaled and then took in a deep breath. “Alright, get ready. This is hit and run, aim for the weapons and the engines. We’re not setting up shop down there. Let’s see if your accuracy is as good as your buddy Barry.”
Jean-Francois gripped the controls tightly, the challenge was on.
------------------------
“Say that again?!” almost shouted Lso’na.
Laura tried to use her hands to gesture for her to calm down. “We need someone to lure the pirates in a particular location. They would have a hard time shooting you with your scales and we need them to want the target. If I’m not mistaken, your father is a diplomat yeah? So that would make you sort of a high target I think.”
Seeing how Lso’na didn't seem convinced, Laura added. “ We won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll be right there.”
Izumi also stepped in. “The rest of the plan, you understand it right?”
“I do. But it’s going to take a long time, are you sure you can pull that off?” It was an unorthodox type of plan to be sure, thought Lso’na.
Barry approached and put a hand on her arm. “I guarantee it!”
“Argh, fine. You’ll all owe me for this though!” She was going to agree to it anyhow but why not get something out of it while at it?
Laura nodded and started giving out orders, everyone going to their position. The door opened and Lso’na headed out, picking up a good pace and making sure her footsteps resonated loudly. It didn't take long for her to pick up a trail, three Yishanee started heading her way, slithering rapidly with their vines.
Lso’na did not look behind, keeping her focus on her pace. It would serve no purpose to see how many chased her, she needed all of them after all. Turning around would only cause them to attempt and tranquilize her, due to her softer underbelly. The chase itself could not last too long either, else they would split up in order to corner her. She pressed on, passing an intersection where she saw more Yishanee join the chase from the corner of her eyes.
She proceeded to carry them on a defined path for many minutes, creating a pattern that would prevent chasing enemies from being able to cut her off.
Rounding the next corner, Lso’na saw one of her fellow students open a side door and give her the signal she had been waiting for. She made her way towards the designated area, willing her legs to keep moving forward, exhaustion and muscle fatigue setting in.
She was nearly to her destination, the door to the room held open by another student at the end of the corridor when her knee gave in and twisted, causing her to fall down. Her heart sank as she struggled to get back up, the precious distance between her and the pirates evaporating rapidly. Struggling, she got back up but only managed to limp forward at a much reduced pace.
A powerful sense of dread began to make its way in her thoughts, she had failed her friends and the academy, who knew what the Yishanee would now do to her.
She managed to keep staring ahead, not wanting to look behind and lose all hope. Out of the doorway, a short distance away really but now seemingly out of reach, Barry poked out his head and looked at her. At least she would be able to say goodbye she thought, that was until a split moment later the insane human propelled himself at full speed out of the door and raced towards her.
She wanted to scream at him that it was too late, that there was nothing he could do but could bring herself to do it. It was cowardly she knew but a tiny part of her wanted to keep believing that something was possible, these humans had defied many expectations after all. Still, he could not fight off all of them on his own; perhaps he could buy some time for her to reach the room and exit out of the backdoor but they outnumbered him too much for that.
As Barry got closer, she could hear him scream, something seemed to fuel him. “Hang on!” he shouted, finally reaching her. She was surprised to see him stop and bend low in front of her, his arms extending towards her. Her shock grew as Barry lifted her off the ground and then turned back the other way, running while carrying her. It was not graceful like she had seen in human stories; where a knight in shining armor carried off a princess. Barry was simply not big enough to be able to wrap his arms around her that way; instead, he had grabbed on to her legs and lifted from behind, leaning the center of her mass against his back. Their speed increased above what her limp was but was still slower than Barry’s full sprint.
As Barry entered the room and exited out of the other side, Lso’na saw Laura and other students positioned close by. Once Barry crossed the other side of the back door, his grip on Lso’na faltered and both went tumbling down.
As if on cue, Laura began giving orders. “Disconnect the lights! Get ready to close the door when they’ve all crossed the first one and then also close the other door!”
The students obeyed, removing wires and cutting them from a nearby electrical panel. As another one shouted from another position, able to see the Yishanee enter the room, the doors were then closed on them, trapping the dozen or so pirates into the dark empty room. Quickly, they began working to disconnect the power supply from the doors, to prevent them opening them from the inside.
Laura oversaw their work and added a few extra things. “Make sure you cut out the heat as well, I want them nice and cold out there and we’ll have the fires outside the doors.”
The doors would only last so long however, so the others began installing secondary defensive measures. Lso’na lay on the floor, her heart racing and breathed a sigh of relief. Feeling a small steady pressure in her back, she remembered Barry and quickly rolled off of him.
“How did you do that?” She asked of him, perplexed.
Panting, Barry lifted a finger up to ask for some time to catch his breath. “Probably a combination of things. The cocaine, the lower gravity, the adrenaline.” He managed to get out before stopping to focus on breathing once again.
Izumi came to the pair and helped them stand up. “No time for laying down, we still have stuff to do. Barry, I need you to go get Jean-Francois’ heating plate, we’re going to need it.
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Jean-Francois’ ears rang as he got out of the steelsuit back at the hangar. Thanking Similriet for his help, he headed out of the dome to get back towards the class. It had been a few hours now and the pirates had nowhere to go, now was the time to negotiate everyone’s release.
To his surprise, when he reached the classroom, he found two Yishanee bodies laid out on the floor and no one present. It seemed they had fought back but there was no telling what had happened afterwards.
Wandering about aimlessly, he finally came up on a large crowd of students sitting in front of a closed door, a small fire burning in front of the door.
“What’s going on here?” he asked the closest student.
“Oh hey, we were wondering what happened to you. Figured you got captured by them before we managed to trap them in here. Now we’re following Laura’s plan and sieging them.” answered the alien.
Hearing Jean-Francois’ voice, Izumi's head popped out from the crowd and she waved at him to come over. He approached and sat down next to her against the wall of the corridor, to the left side of the door. “What’s this about a siege?”
“Well, it was safer than taking them head on. We figure we can just starve them out. Started a fire at this door using your hot plate and there's one at the other door too. It keeps them away from the doors. We need to keep this up for a few days until reinforcement arrives and then we’ll be done. You should go speak to Laura, she hatched up the plan. She’s on the other side with Barry.”
Jean-Francois stood up and headed the long way around to the other door.
Spotting Laura talking with a few students, he stepped in after the conversation was over. “So you guys have been pretty busy too huh?”
“Hey! Glad you’re okay. You have no idea. A lot of it was assumptions but we had to do something, anything. Now that they’re in the dark, they can’t regain energy and we’re using heat to keep them away from the doors, fire being the natural enemy of plants. They’re patient ambushers by nature, so that's working against them too. What have you been up to?”
“I went to the dome and got a steelsuit. Then with Similriet, we disabled the pirate ship so they wouldn’t have a way off station.” He tried to keep it short and to the point, no use mentioning how they dodged enemy fire and almost got blown up a few times.
Laura gave him a thumbs up. “Great. That takes care of one thing I was worried about; which was pirate reinforcements.”
“Ah, there you are. I was beginning to worry about your disappearance.” Mrs Moldrin said as she approached the pair. “But are you certain we can keep them confined for so long? We will have to sleep at some point.”
“We can take rotating shifts to make sure there’s always someone watching.” Clarified Laura.
“Rotating shifts? One must sleep when they are tired, you cannot delay the inevitable.” Insisted Mrs.Moldrin.
“You can’t? Humans can stay awake quite a long time if they want to. It does come with severe adverse health effects though. We could just do the night shifts then and then in the day the rest of you can cover us while we sleep.” Added Jean-Francois.
Laura nodded and smiled. “All that's left to do now is play the waiting game.”
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A little more than three days was what it took for military forces to make it to the station. By then, the Yshanee had been forced to undergo dormancy due to lack of sunlight and nutrients which was also helped by the room going colder than intended. The security teams, once they arrived, were able to safely and easily, remove the pirates from the station.
After a few days of rest and no classes, all students were called into the main auditorium. The headmaster looked across the entire room, his gaze passing on every student. All were arrayed side by side in the largest room of the station, a meeting by the academy having been called.
“I want to begin by offering thanks to those who stepped up and helped defend their fellow students against the Yshanee. Your actions were brave, we owe you a great deal of gratitude. We will contact your governments and ask them on how to proceed with regards to potential commendations.”
Taking a short pause, he resumed. “Now, the events of the last few days have shown us that perhaps we have been too complacent. This is a failure of both myself and the administration. That is why, we will be fixing the damage that was incurred and redesigning the station’s security. As the academy will be unable to operate as intended during this time, we will be starting the work experience program earlier than anticipated.”
“All of you will receive up to three options, based on your scores and aptitudes, of a profession to shadow someone in. Your teachers will now pass these on to you, please exit the room once you have them. The deployments will begin over the course of next week.”
Starting with those in front, the teachers began approaching students and talked to them while presenting their choices, offering guidance. Soon, the room diminished and only the four humans remained, standing at the back.
Their two teachers approached together and greeted them, with Mr.Florgue talking first. “This is a bit unusual we must admit. When evaluating you, we had to consider the positions you would be best suited for. This proved problematic as we couldn’t figure out where you’d perform poorly.”
Mrs Moldrin continued. “Naturally, we would have recommendations based on what we observed but at the end of the day, we do not think there would be any bad choices for you to take.”
Turning towards Barry, Mr. Florgue handed him three small plates of metal that were engraved.
“Barry, we would suggest something that enables you to make use of your physical strength, good reflexes and bravery. We think that a military career would work best for you or perhaps something with the steelsuit leagues.”
Mrs Moldrin approached Laura and handed her three small metal plates as well. “Laura, your quick thinking and ability to create plans would make you a good asset for military command. Those same skills however, could also be used in other domains such as infrastructure planning.”
Mr.Flogue proceeded on to Izumi. “Your calm nature, even under stress and the way you’re able to communicate would make you a good diplomat I believe. You have no issue with absorbing new ideas, even learning how to work with alien technology. You could easily join a think-tank or help integrate human technology with ours.”
Lastly, Mrs Moldrin went up to Jean-Francois. “To us, you are perhaps the strangest of the four. You have ideas and concepts that are entirely foreign to us and know how to execute them. You’ve displayed skill at piloting a steelsuit and are decently versed in a few subject matters; yet we do not know your true potential. You’d certainly be able to make it as a merchant or the founder of a company but at the same time we could see you spread knowledge about human culture as a foreign ambassador.”
The two then stepped back, with Mrs.Moldrin wrapping it up. “Your paths are yours to choose as we believe you likely know better than us. If you wish to choose something different, we have left one of your plates empty so it can be engraved how you wish. Any questions?”
“Why are you using metal plates?” asked Barry, turning them over in his hands.
“Sometimes it feels good to have a physical reminder of one’s accomplishments. We could easily have done it digitally but for many, this is a trophy or sorts. Your plates are yours to keep and past students have often kept them for their whole lives.” Mr.Florgue answered.
Laura looked at the two teachers and asked. “How long will this work experience last?”
“Fourteen human months, give or take a month from my rough approximation of your calendar.” Replied Mrs.Moldrin.
Their questions answered, the teachers then left, leaving our four humans to themselves.
“Well, I guess we’re going to split up huh?” Muttered Jean-Francois
“Unless we all went to the same place, yeah. But we’ll come back here afterwards right?” Added Barry.
“I’m looking forward to it. It’s exciting.” Chimed in Laura.
“Well, guess I’ll go look at my options in my room, I’m sure they’re listed somewhere on their net.” Said Izumi, as she began to walk out of the room.
“Hey, let’s keep in touch yeah?” Jean-Francois mentioned, walking out of the room with the group.
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Well, that's all he wrote. It started off as a little idea for a one shot; human biology being taught at an alien school and evolved into something more. I kept getting awards, even months after and it made me feel guilty that I hadn't finished it up so I finally managed to get the willpower to do it. Thanks for all the support HFY!

Unresolved 1858 double homicide: The sisters Carolina and Sara Nilsdotter, drowned in a Swedish lake

Hello everyone. I have been researching (lots of spare time due to Covid-19…) a horrible and seemingly unresolved double homicide which took place in my native home province of Bohuslän, a whopping 163 years ago. To my knowledge, this case has only ever been published here by local genealogists in 2015, in Swedish. The post is rather brief, so I will try to make it more in-depth, and provide as many primary sources as possible. Unfortunately I do not have access to the court proceedings, which would likely illuminate many things, but must instead rely on contemporary newspapers and church records.
Any and all comments are very appreciated, as are theories.
Let’s dig in.

The area

First off: Welcome to Lane-Ryr Parish, also known historically as Northern Ryr, on the Swedish West Coast. Centred around Lane-Ryr Church, it is today located in Uddevalla Municipality of Västra Götaland County, just outside the town of Uddevalla itself. As described in 1872 by Sven Pettersson, the parish "consists mainly of, with the exception of some more fertile valleys, hill ridges and non-arable land. The area is quite rich in little lakes and creeks as well as in peat bogs, which are seldom used as there are still extant woodlands. ... The peasantry lives off agriculture. The main crops are barley and oats.” Not a wealthy area by any means, but not among the poorest in the country either.

The victims

Here is the birth, wedding and death registry of Lane-Ryr Parish covering the years 1811-1860. Page 624 (left) shows those who died in the parish during the year 1858. In the lower half of the page you will find two people who died on the same date, the 12th of September 1858. They are the maids Carolina Nilsdotter and Sara Catrina Nilsdotter. Carolina is listed as having been 25 years, 7 months and 9 days old at the time of her death. Sara Catrina was 22 years and 21 days. They were buried at Lane-Ryr Church’s cemetery months later, at an unspecified date in November. Two deaths in one day is not entirely unexpected --- the infectious disease known in Swedish as “rödsot”, i.e. dysentery, had been haunting the parish since August, killing a total of four people. But these two young women did not fall victim to an epidemic.
Cause of death: “Murdered”.
Who were these young women, and what happened?
It’s difficult to say much about them as people, as records are scant. They were sisters, that much is clear. Their births are recorded in the same book that documents their death. Carolina’s name was recorded at birth as Christina, as seen here (second from the top, left page), but similarly-sounding names were somewhat fluid in this period (for example a man could be called both Anders and Andreas, or Jon and Johannes, etc. at varying times, which sounds absurd to a modern Swede). Either way, Carolina was born on 28 November 1833 and was likely baptised on the same day. Sara Catrina’s birth notice is found here (the first one on the left page). She was born on 21 August 1836 and baptised the same day. Both girls were born in the village of Håven, only about ~ 4km (~ 2.5 miles) from where they would meet their ends, as the crow flies.
Their parents were the farmers Nils Larsson (b. 14/4 1793, d. 17/4 1862) and Anna Jönsdotter (b. 10/1 1798, d. 19/5 1847). They had several siblings; Anna Catharina (b. 17/1 1825, d. 11/1 1829), Anna Maria (b. 19/11 1826, d. 12/3 1888), Johan Andreas (b. 22/6 1830, d. 28/6 1886), Elias (b. 4/12 1840, d. 4/4 1841). As you can tell, only two of the siblings lived to adult age in an age of very high child mortality, and their mother died in 1847 when Carolina and Sara were about 14 and 11 years old.
Being left with a widowed father and two older siblings is likely what led both of the younger girls to become housemaids, a VERY common “career” for girls and young women from poorer households in agrarian Sweden, at an early age. Sara moved to the nearby village of Röd as a maid in 1852, aged 16. Her sister Carolina left for a different village a few years earlier, at the same age, in 1849. The records are not very easy to read, but it seems that Carolina joined her sister at Röd in 1855, leaving for another farm in 1856, before returning in 1857. Either way, being a maid could be an at least locally somewhat mobile lifestyle, but in the end both of the sisters ended up at the same place.
This is also where they both died, unfortunately. As said before, cause of death: “Murdered”.

The village

Now, a little about the village of Röd, which is located roughly here, although the location of modern-day buildings is very different from the mid-19th century past. It appears to have been a fairly standard, moderately prosperous farmstead. At the time of the murders Röd was inhabited by several different families. The records show that the sisters lived in the household of the somewhat elderly farmer Anders Jacobsson (b. 1/12 1796) and his wife Gunilla Larsdotter (b. 21/10 1800).
Notably, Gunilla Larsdotter was the younger sister of Nils Larsson, making her the paternal aunt of the sisters Carolina and Sara, and her children their first cousins.
The couple Anders and Gunilla had four sons, several of which seem to have co-owned the land with their parents; Anders (b. 13/1 1825), Jacob (b. 18/3 1831), Lars (b. 11/3 1833), and Carl August (b. 20/4 1840). Their daughters Anna Britta (b. 17/12 1826) and Johanna (b. 19/5 1838) were living away from home at the time. They also had several children who never made it as far as 1858, again due to high mortality rates; Johannes (b. 15/11 1822, d. 6/11 1847), Christina (b. 13/12 1828, d. 23/4 1847), Inga Maria (b. 11/7 1835, d. 13/5 1847). Let’s have a look at the sons living at home at the time of the murders:

Anders (age 33 in 1858) was unmarried at the time, but would marry a local girl years later and have many children.
Jacob (age 27 in 1858) had in 1854 married a local girl, Maria Olofsdotter, and they had the daughters Emelie Charlotta (b. 27/8 1855). They would later have two more daughters.
Lars (age 25) also married a local girl, Anna Lena Bengtsdotter (b. 22/12 1835), in 1855. They would have the children Johan Leonard (b. 24/6 1855, only three months after the wedding) and Anna Bethy (b. 6/8 1857). They would later have many more children.
Carl August (age 18 in 1858) was unmarried at the time, but would like Anders marry a local girl years later and have many children.

There also seems to have been many, many more more-or-less transient farmworkers, male and female, which are difficult to read the names of.

The murders

According to the aforementioned genealogists, likely based on the court proceedings which I can’t access during Covid-19, Carolina and Sara went together early in the morning of 12 September 1858 to Uddevalla, likely to attend the market. It was a Sunday. They never made it. Later, their bodies were found in a lake, just about a kilometre away from Röd, called Aborrevattnet. Unfortunately it is not specified which lake, as there are two neighbouring ones called Little and Big Aborrevattnet. Here is a link to a position right inbetween the two bodies of water. Again according to the genealogists, locals (and the local priest) initially thought it was a case of accidental drowning.
The case was first reported on in the local Uddevalla newspaper Bohusläns Tidning (no. 73, p. 2) on 20 September 1858. Here is the original article in Swedish. The identical text would receive much attention, and was reprinted in newspapers all around the country. My crude translation of it (I’ve tried to keep the original syntax) reads as:
"In the beginning of last week at the village of Röd in Northern Ryr Parish two maids had gone missing, wherefore searching for them was arranged, when after much searching they were found on adjoining lands laying murdered, one of them apparently through suffocation and the other through a knife cut in the jugular notch. Any sure knowledge of the perpetrator is not yet had, but there is hope that the evil-doer will be found soon enough and then receive his well-earned reward."
^{(It may interest some of you to know that the original word used which I have translated here to "evil-doer" is "niding", a descendant of the Old Norse} ^nīðing)
So, a double homicide. Two sisters, found dead in a lake.

The investigation

The next piece of information takes some time. Bohusläns Tidning (no. 90, pp. 1-2) published the next update on 9 December 1858, some months after the murders. My own (again somewhat crude) translation:
"Investigations at the Thing [district court], regarding the by us in no. 73 of 20th September mentioned, deceased two housemaids from the village Röd in Norra Ryr Parish of this district, has now taken place thrice in Lane Hundred Court here in town [Uddevalla]; and as a suspect for the violent act the homeowner Anders Jacobsson in Röd's son, Jacob Andersson, was placed in jail in the beginning of the trial due to against him aggravating circumstances. As during the case's further handling on Monday at the same court, aggravating circumstances against the father were presented, he was also, on the request to the Hundred Court by the public prosecutor, put into jail, wherefore both father and son have been transferred to the Cell Prison in Gothenburg. The case will again be put forward on the 27th of this month, when we will likely return to it.
In this context we may add the Provincial Physician Dr. Åhlström’s certificates regarding the autopsies of the dead bodies, while we with these certificate's publication in the newspaper must make a small correction to our details in no. 73, where we mentioned --- as per what had been described to us --- that one of the maids had received a knife cut in the jugular notch, which according to what the certificates show has been unfounded.
They read accordingly:
Certificate:
Through this examination has been determined, that on Sara Catrina Nilsdotter's body, beyond two smaller grazes on the right ring finger's and the left middle finger's outer surfaces, was during the scalp's removal between it and the skullbone above the right ear found a smaller extravasation of blood, as well as immediately behind the right ear a somewhat larger extravasation of coagulated blood of about a thumbend's size and the depth of a linia [note: I believe this is c. 2mm]. These extravasations of blood around the right the ear derive from exterior violence, which likely caused unconsciousness, but has not been lethal.
Furthermore the autopsy minutes give at hand, that Sara Catrina Nilsdotter was pregnant in the third month.
Because of this I find that Sara Catrina Nilsdotter, as no signs of lethal exterior violence are found, met death through suffocation in water (drowning by accident or purpose), which is hereby testified on the oath of my office and is confirmed by my oathbound duty: "So help me God to life and soul". Uddevalla October 1st 1858. O. E. Åhlström. Med. Doc. Ch. Mag., Provincial Physician.
Certificate:
From the above presented autopsy minutes it is shown that the only signs of exterior violence which can be found to have been done unto Carolina Nilsdotter during her lifetime, are a pea-sized, one linia [note: again, possibly c. 2mm] deep, wound on the left ear's upper edge with some extravasation of blood in the circumference, but this injury is of little importance, wherefore it must be assumed that the maid Carolina Nilsdotter died due to suffocation in water; which is hereby testified on the oath of my office and is confirmed by my oathbound duty: "So help me God to life and soul". Uddevalla September 30th 1858. O. E. Åhlström. Med. Doc. Ch. Mag., Provincial Physician.
That these certificates, which have been by Dr. Åhlström, after performed autopsy on the bodies of Sara Nilsdotter and Carolina Nilsdotter, reported, are identical to the originals, is hereby certified, Uddevalla, October 20th 1858, on behalf of the Judges' Office, A. Rosenqvist."
So, some takeaways.

Both sisters appear to have been forcibly drowned.
Both sisters had minor injuries possibly indicating a struggle.
Sara was three months pregnant.
The autopsies were performed by Dr. Otto Edvard Åhlström (1821–1897), a to my knowledge highly respected physician, and certified by a man who I believe to be the district judge and later MP Axel Rosenqvist (1815–1907).

The aftermath

Then follows media silence for a long while. It is here I really wish I could access the original court documents, but alas.
Over a year after the murders, this article was published in Bohusläns Tidning (no. 89, p. 1) on 17 November 1859. Again my translation:
"After multiple trial hearings during the entirety of this and part of last year, with the arrested farm owner Anders Jacobsson in Röd from Norra Ryr Parish and his two sons, who have been indicted for the murder of two maids, which has been previously told, Lane Hundred Court proclaimed judgement in the case last month, in which the Court declared that Anders Jacobsson could not be convicted for the deed and that Carl Andersson had been acquitted, while the guilt of Jacob Andersson was left for the future, as the case may become revealed. And the verdict, regarding the latter person, is now placed under the trying and examination of the Göta Court of Appeal."
So, nothing could be pinned on Anders, and Carl --- who we first learn here was also arrested alongside his older brother and father --- was acquitted, while the guilt of Jacob was still to be the determined. What happened next?
Unfortunately, as with all things in this case, it’s unclear. The aforementioned geneaologists state that Jacob was set free in the spring of 1860, but the priest’s notes in the 1854-1860 household rolls state that Anders, Carl August and Jacob all sat in jail during the period 1858-1859, which would imply they were all released that year. He was released either way, which shows that the courts could not find him guilty. Jacob became a father for the second time during his imprisonment on 16 January 1859, when his wife Maria gave birth to their daughter Amanda Elisabeth.
One aspect adds to the confusion: This advertisement was published in Bohusläns Tidning (no. 78, p. 4) on 4 October 1860, little over a year after the murder. It reads in translation:
"Auction. At the request of the wife Maja Olsdotter, by power of attorney, will through open and voluntary auction, Wednesday the 10th of the coming October, to be sold to the highest bidder: 1/8 of the cadastral unit Röd in Norra Ryr Parish, owned by Jacob Andersson, to be accessed immediately with harvested crops or on the 25th of next March without crops. On the property is annually sowed 1 1/2 barrel of autumn and 15 barrels of spring seed not counting potatoes, and is annually harvested 15 barrels of autumn and 60 barrels of spring seed as well as 60 cartloads of hay, which together with straw can feed 2 horses, 8 hoofbound cattle and 8 sheep; beyond the this year newly built residential building the other buildings are in a completely usable state; timber exist for both household use and sale as well as good summer pastures. --- At the same auction is sold various goods, which consist of 2 horses, 4 cows, 1 heifer, some sheep and pigs; kopper, tin, metals, iron and wooden equipment, furniture and household furnishings, farming tools and carts, etc."
There’s some further details about the auction, of little note for us. The ad is dated 28 September 1860 and signed by a man called Bengt Olsson. This all indicates that Jacob was not at home during the autumn of October 1860, as his wife — likely in financial straits due to his imprisonment — had secured permission for, and received help in arranging, an auction (not a minor affair to fix up).
Even more confusing is that Jacob became a father for the third time on 9 April 1861, when Maria gave birth to their daughter Johanna Maria, which (if the paternity is correct) would imply that Jacob was out and about in the summer of 1860.

Disappearance?

Either way, the end result is this: Nobody was ever found guilty of the double homicide of the sisters Carolina and Sara Catrina Nilsdotter on 12 September 1858. But what became of the suspects?

Anders Jacobsson, the family father who had apparently been released due to a lack of evidence, died on 16 August 1867. Here is the record of his death (no. 31), unfortunately no cause of death is listed. He was 70 years old.
His wife Gunilla Larsdotter, mother of the other two suspects and aunt of the two victims, died at Röd on 25 March 1880, aged 80.
Carl August Andersson, the younger brother who was acquitted from the crimes, died on 12 February 1908 at age 68. He had in 1863 married the local girl Britta Maja Bengtsdotter, and had many children. Here he is in the 1890 census with his wife and six of his children.
Anders Andersson and Lars Andersson, the two brothers who do not seem to have been suspects in the murders, died on 29 July 1907 and 16 March 1918 respectively. They both had families.
And what became of our primary suspect, Jacob Andersson? It’s a bit messy. Records show that he moved to the nearby village of Hogane sometime in the 1860s with his wife Maria and his three daughters. And then…

He vanished. The 1868-1878 household rolls (row 33) has him crossed out. The priest has jotted down a simple comment: “Resides at an unknown location”. The column furthest to the right notes a page number in the rolls, and the date 1871, which would appear to be the date of his disappearance. The mystery thickens on that page (third from the bottom). Here the priest has listed him among people whose whereabouts are unknown, and alleges the following comment: “Convicted for manslaughter, escaped in 1859”.
This seems very strange. As far as I can tell, there were no reports in 1859 about an escapee from anywhere. He had a child in 1861, and there was absolutely nothing indicating this escape in the previous iterations of the household rolls, such as when Jacob is listed as having moved to Hogane. Could it be that the scribe in the 1870s misremembered years-old events, confusing the facts?
Either way, he was most definitely gone by the 1870s. Despite much searching, I cannot find Jacob in any later census, nor is his death registered anywhere. His wife Maria remarried in 1873 to a man called Anders Magnus Abrahamsson (1826–1915) and has at least another daughter, Annie Adelina (b. 24/2 1875, d. 9/3 1954). Her and Jacob’s three daughters lived for many more years and got married; Emelie Charlotta (b. 27/8 1855, d. 1/10 1938), Amanda Elisabeth (b. 16/1 1859, d. 19/11 1912), and Johanna Maria (b. 9/4 1861, d. 24/9 1947). None of them left the Uddevalla area.

Thoughts

Personally, I find it very likely that Jacob Andersson did indeed drown his two cousins the sisters Carolina and Sara Catrina Nilsdotter. Maybe he was the father of Sara’s child, which would have been a problem to a married man with a younger daughter. I think he had help --- it seems very difficult for one man to attack and drown two young women out walking on foot together --- possibly by his father, who might’ve wanted to cover up his son’s deeds. And what happened to Jacob later on? Did he leave voluntarily, or did some vengeful relative get to him? Regarding that, I have no idea.
All comments appreciated!

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When a girl gives up on you - YouTube

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Thumbs Up Emoticon: The F*ck You of the Texting World

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