There’s so much information online about functional doctors and what they do and I’ve been pulling those resources to use for minor issues that have been very helpful but when it comes to more serious conditions it can be overwhelming to know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. I’ve been on the lookout for a comprehensive guide or website or book of how to approach health issue but unfortunately I haven’t found any that match what I’m looking for. They were specific to a condition or too diet focused which are great but I’m looking for more of a guide and/or the names of the exact testing required for certain conditions or the list of common supplements that are usually needed and how to work with your functional doctor. More of a “HOW TO” book. Because this is an “alternative” approach it’s outside of common knowledge we all have of the conventional model.
Before you say I should see a functional doctor, I will be! I am planning to see a functional doctor next month. But even that’s too long of a wait. I am 27F and I’ve been seeing a naturopathic doctor which was great last year with changing up my diet and I saw huge improvements with my moods/anxiety and energy levels. But not much improvement on my skin. Granted, she was not a functional doctor and did not offer to do those testings. I am not going to see her because I need more Serious intervention. Lately my psoriasis has gotten extremely worse and getting to dangerous stages. I’m in constant pain and nothing I used to do has been helpful. There’s clearly something happening inside my gut/liver as it’s been extremely stubborn to treat and calm down.
But Psoriasis is tricky because it can cause commorbidities and damage to internal organs from all the inflammation. That’s my biggest fear.
All this to say that I am coming this 👌 close to seeing my dermatologist to getting prescribed an immunosuppressant like methotrexate or humira or enbrel to calm it down for a bit before I start my long term plan with functional medicine. I know FM is something you’re in for the long haul but I just cannot continue living like this. And I’m tempted to just try a biologic for me to have my life back for once.
My question for all of you here is: would this plan be a good idea or not? I’m hesitant because of the side effects that I’ll have from the drugs and having to deal with that might delay. But then again I’m willing for it to take longer if that means I have some relief now. I am more worried if there are permanent damage the side effects these drugs can have in my body. So would taking these drugs for a couple months, have my skin calm down and then start functional approach be worth it?! Or will that cause further problems?
And lastly, if you have any encyclopedic type or textbook resource for functional medicine I would be very interested :) that’s how I learn best.

Single mom here for just about the entirety of my daughter’s 15 years. Dad is involved, but I have been single and doing it alone the whole time ( dated, only one serious 1 year long relationship).
I have no mom or siblings. My dad and his wife are around and spend time with us, but that’s about it. I have a career, I work a second job to be able to enjoy some nice things in life. I have friends.
But it’s all on me. Everything is ME. I have no one I can lean on. Due to my childhood and failed marriage, I never want to burden anyone with anything. I am an extremely high functioning individual , but it’s taking a toll on me. I can’t even find a therapist, non in my plan are taking new patients. I feel like I’ve lost passion in life. I’m just going through the motions for my daughter, who is everything to me. She’s a wonderful well adjusted kid. I get along with her father and his wife ( which was his affair partner) and I do it for her. But it takes a bit of a toll on me inside.
I just feel so incredibly alone in this world. I’m having a health scare and I have to deal alone. And why do I have to deal alone? I have High risk HPV again with an abnormal pap again. My first was my ex husband and I got that from him. I was 20 and scared. Had multiple biopisies and a procedure done which lead me to a high risk pregnancy. And here I am again at 42. I’ve had way too many sexual partners, although mostly safe, it’s just a lot of you have even 2 in a year for 15 years. I was hoping to find a monogamous LTR somewhere along the line and I never did. And now as an a middle aged woman, I have to go through this again. And alone.
I just needed somewhere to put my feelings. If you got this far, thank you

Hi guys, I would like to submit my concept for the March 2023 Contest, presenting Luvic Kávion - The Pain Nullifer. I hope you guys could let me know what you think. Thank you !!!!

LUVIC KÁVION, THE PAIN NULLIFIER

INFORMATION:

ROLE: Jungler Support
POSITION: Jungle.
SECONDARY BAR: Mana.
ADAPTIVE DAMAGE: Magical.
LORE: Please see in comment (The post is too long so Reddit didn't allow me to include it 😭)

WHAT ASPECT IS THIS CHAMPION FITTED FOR THE CONTEST?

Luvic Kávion is designed with the implementation of "late" concepts - He can makes damage comes later than they should be. This will be very handy for his allies as it help them to endure the combat longer. Additionally, it also helps them to avoid burst damage, and can react appropriately (By using Zhonya, Shield, Heal or any protective methods they have) - and since all the delayed damage are clumped into one big chunk instead of being scattered to multiple hit, a correct W from Fiora could easily help her survive all of those delayed damage.
At the same time, when being used on the enemies, although it also delays the damage they would take, the cost is that they will take a heavily increased damage - which make bursting down an enemy become much faster !
Finally, Luvic has 2 multiple casts abilities, which fits in the second prom of this contest.
‏‏‎ ‎

ABILITIES:

[P] AMULET OF ANETHESIA:

Luvic Kávion possess a special amulet, enchanted with his magic, that can delay pain. By long-pressing the left mouse click while pointing to a champion or a structure, Luvic can assign his amulet to that target, granting different effects:
• If the target is an ally: The amulet lingers on that target until the target is going to be slained / destroyed. At that time, delay all the damage that allied unit would take in the next 3 seconds.
• If the target is an enemy: Delay all damage that enemy would take in the upcoming 3 seconds. However, when the effect ends, amplify that delayed damage by 30%, stackable with all other forms of amplification.
After being used, the amulet returns to Luvic, putting the chosen target on a 90-second cooldown until they can receive the amulet again.

While the amulet is on Luvic, it is automatically assigned to him, if able.

‏‏‎ ‎

[Q] MARKING SHOT:

This ability has 2 casts:
• First Cast: Targeting an area, Luvic deals 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+40% AP) magical damage to all enemies inside it and marks them.
• Second Cast: Luvic throws an energy missles forward, which explodes in an area upon impact and deals the same damage. If this second missle hits any marked enemy, it consumes the mark, stunning the target for 1 second and heal Luvic for 3% / 4% / 5% / 6% / 7% of his maximum Health for each mark consumed.

COOLDOWN: 8 seconds all Level.
COST: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 Mana.

‏‏‎ ‎ ‏‏‎ ‎

[W] SPIRITUAL DELAY:

This ability has 2 casts:
• First Cast: Targeting a non-allied unit, Luvic steals 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 (+5% AP) Ability Haste from that enemy unit for 8 seconds. If that enemy's Ability Haste reaches 0, silence their Summoner's Spells for 3 seconds if that is a champion, or if that is a monster, delay all damage that Luvic would take from the surrounding monsters for 5 seconds instead.
• Second Cast: Only available if Luvic targets an enemy Champion on his first cast. Luvic then targets an allied champion, and transfers the stolen Ability Haste to them for the remaining duration.

COOLDOWN: 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 / 16 seconds.
COST: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 Mana.

‏‏‎ ‎

[E] AMULET OF FORCE:

Deploy an Amulet of Force on the ground, which immediately marks all enemy champion within 1100 radius around itself for 5 seconds. If the enemies succesfully destroy the amulet within that specified time, it is safely defused without any consquences. Half this ability's cooldown will be refunded if that happens.
Otherwise, if the marked enemies are late and fail to destroy the amulet in 5 seconds, it explodes, pulling all marked enemies to its position and dealing 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 (+80% AP) magical damage

The flag has 3 HP, and takes 1 damage each time it is struck by an attack or damaging ability.
COOLDOWN: 21 / 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 seconds.
COST: 70 Mana all levels

‎‏‏‎ ‎

[R] ANETHESIA GRAND ENCHANTMENT:

Luvic create a large magical zone in 2.5 / 3 / 3.5 seconds at the targeted position, delaying all the damage that any champion (including enemies) inside the zone has to take, until the zone disappears.
If Luvic enters the zone before it disappears, cleanse all delayed damage for both sides. Additionally, 30% / 40% / 50% of the delayed damage will be converted to a Shield for all allied champions standing in the zone. The shield last for 2 seconds.

Note: ALL delayed damage are cleansed, including delayed damage from his other abilities.

Otherwise, if he comes late, or is not in the zone when it expires, increase the delayed damage that both sides have to take by 20% / 25% / 30%.

COOLDOWN: 150 / 120 / 90 seconds
COST: 100 Mana all levels.

WHAT ASPECT IS THIS CHAMPION FITTED FOR THE CONTEST?

Please see in comment (The post is too long so Reddit doesn't allow me to include it 😭).
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING MY POST !

(That title makes it seem like I had a tank battalion over the next ridge helping me out by offering fire support. What an image.)
I've beaten white and even silver lynels in single combat before, but so far I have only been able to do so with training wheels: level 4 amber earrings, champion's tunic, and soldier's greaves (a whopping 88 armor), which allows me to shrug off pretty much any melee weapon they hit me with for just a quarter heart of health (except the crushers, those take four hearts). The near-invulnerability provides a great base upon which to practice combat with these creatures in a safe(er) environment.
Also, if you kick a white lynel in the face, you get a really nice bow. I eventually got to the point where I'd use savage lynel bows to farm royal weapons from hinoxes, then go use the royal gear to farm lynels for savage bows. When you throw the Master Sword (here twice-upgraded to 50 damage) into the mix, you violate the laws of thermodynamics; you get more goodies out of the process than you need to sustain it.
But I wanted to complete the Trial of the Sword. To unlock the full potential of the Master Sword. I admit, I'm not doing it because it's right or because it's what heroes do. I'm doing it because I wanted a (sorta) free top-tier weapon that (sorta) never breaks.
Also the sword glows.
So I take the Trials. One might ask if it's worth the stress and strain at this point in the game; all of the shrines have been completed, all the inventory expansions have been acquired, all the memories re-lived. There's precious little remaining on which to use an awakened Master Sword. But questions of worth fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. Ain't nobody got time for dat, I wanna hit things with a shiny stick!
I tried the trials during my first play through the game, four years ago. I didn't do well; I couldn't even complete the first set—heck, I couldn't even get half-way through the first set. This second time through I do better. It still takes a couple tries, but the first trials go down.
I put it down to playing the game on a larger screen; 32 inches, not the Switch's 6.2. It makes a huge difference; I can actually see enough detail to let me parry and dodge. With my current play through clocking in at 110 hours, 105 of those on a large screen, it astonishes me that I completed my first 70-hour playthrough entirely on the Switch's tiny screen.
I've never seen the second set of trials before this playthrough, but they're actually easier than the first, there being no water-only levels. Bomb-arrow armed bokoblins on the third floor catch me off guard the first time, but I complete the middle trials on my second attempt.
The final trials scare me. I have read the ancient texts. I know what awaits me in the deep. I know what the monks awoke in the darkness of the magic boxes. Manes... and flame... Without gads of armor to cover my ass I fear I will simply be smashed flat by these beasts. But I dive in anyway—the trials won't complete themselves. The shiny stick won't be given to me. I need to earn it.
When I get to the first rest stop, I find something that makes my heart stop. Three ancient arrows? The ancient texts made no mention of these! The only equipment notices I had were for the flamebreaker boots; a not-so-subtle 'you will spend the next five floors on fire' advertisement. I know what these arrows can do to the mere meatbags who oppose me! Five minutes ago I wasn't even worried about guardians, because lynels. But these... these. For the first time ever, I feel a little thrill of hope. If I have these, even without armor, I can beat lynels. My own little cheat code. All I have to do is tough out the guardians.
My first pass through the final trials doesn't go well. I'm nervous, twitchy. I take too many hits. I inadvertently shove my one and only hearty radish into my greedy mouth instead of the cooking pot, wasting a whole full recovery opportunity. By the time I arrive at the second rest stop, there aren't enough food items on the floor to get me back up to full health. And after that comes snow levels; I can't cook everything on this floor to bring my health up as much as possible because I need them to provide me with cold resistance for the next few floors. I get through a couple levels before I tunnel vision on the wrong target; a blizzrobe freezes me and a silver bokoblin turns me inside out.
The second attempt I make sure to take a little bit slower. I plan my attacks, I withdraw if I'm in a position I don't like, I make very careful use of the few elemental weapons I have to one-hit kill and stunlock tougher enemies. When I get back to floor 14, I don't take my chances. I oneshot the blizzrobe with a fire arrow then pull out the first of my three ancient toys and stick it right up the silver bokoblin's backside, banishing his ass to the shadow realm. I will not have another run ruined by those two.
Things proceed more or less smoothly from there. I get to floor 17 and face my first lynel, a blue. It manages to glare at me for all of 2.6 seconds before the second of my ancient arrows wipes its stupid face (and the rest of it) from existence.
The guardians on the following floors give me pause, but the lone ones are easy to abuse and the three on floor 22 don't cover each other if you approach from the right angle. They are all slowly dismantled, one by one.
And then, finally, I arrive on the final floor, 23. Here there are eight little basic red bokoblins on horseback, a guardian turret, and my sum of all fears, Mr. White. Tall, proud, buff, and ugly as all get out, it spots me immediately, screams in barely-contained ketamine-fueled rage that someone as pink as me would deign to cross its field of view, and hauls its massive bow off its back. Before it fires is all the time I have.
It's all the time I need.
I draw the royal bow. I draw the last ancient arrow. I nock this final bolt, the swansong of power on the operatic ballad of shiny sticks. I raise the bow, pointing the arrow at a space a couple feet above the lynel's face; it's a long way, after all. I draw the string.
As afraid as I am, I'm also giddy. I'm there. This will be easy. I just need to let this thing fly and the hard work will all be over. The only thing remaining will be some little pissbabies on horses and a machine that is too stupid to avoid getting stunlocked by repeatedly having arrows shoved in its eye.
I loose my ultimate weapon.
The arrow travels gallantly through the air, its tip sparking into incandescent magnificence as it crosses the open space, dripping sparkles as it flies, little harbingers of its mission of doom. The giddiness reaches a fever pitch. I'm trembling with excitement.
The arrow buries itself...
...in the dirt six inches from the Mr. White's feet.
I've fluffed it. I had one shot, literally, to get this done, and I failed.
I want to cry. These trials have been hard on me. I've had to take extended breaks in the middle of them several times already to untense myself. The prospect of doing it all over again on account of one whinnet-ridden lynel quiet frankly gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies, you know what I mean? Ten year old me would have chucked the controller and screamed in guttural German. Thankfully those days are behind me; I simply pause and walk away for a while. Did I go have a little weep? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe screw yourself.
I like to imagine the lynel and his hangers-on spend several seconds staring at the ruined arrow on the floor in front of them, then looking back up at me with contemptuous amusement as I literally try to swallow my fear, panic, and horror all at once. Of course, the game doesn't render emotions like that, but it's a funny image.
I have an argument with myself here. I don't want to try this full-frontal combat without my training wheels armor—I'm a coward. But even more so than that, I really don't want to run through the last 22 floors of the final trials again—I'm lazy. I even consider quitting the trials and giving up on the fully-awaked Master Sword. I consider using exploits to skip the final set of trials; it's not like I haven't already made it through all these floors, right? I'd just be... you know... skipping one single floor. Sorta. That's not too unfair, right?
When I come back I heave a large 'woe-is-me' sigh and unpause.
I can't face this creature and its groupies all at once on an open field.
I run for all my sorry little Hylian twink ass is worth.
Unfortunately, that's where the story stops being so dramatic. I climb the tower in the corner after I've broken the lynel's line of sight, severely abuse the guardian turret, and hunker down on my new perch. I know I can't bow the lynel to death; I don't have enough arrows and it'll call orbital strikes down on my head. I can't engage it in direct melee combat; I have only four weapons remaining and they'll break on its face before its face does.
But I realize I can abuse the bokoblins as well. They're really no more capable than the guardian turrets are. They won't attack me en mass. I pull them over where the lynel can't see them, one at a time, and pick them off their horses and steal their weapons. After a few minutes there's nobody left in the room except myself and Mr. White. Now I have a dozen weapons; sure they aren't all great, but they're fresh.
I now have no choice other than give up here, at the last step, or just dive in and see where it goes. It's not really a choice.
What I can say is that, thankfully, the training wheels experience gave me the actual skills necessary to get the job done. Mr. White and I engage in combat I manage to take him down with a dozen broken weapons, one broken shield, and all of my hearts.
That rush when the lynel finally collapses was incredible. It was like someone had jabbed an entire thing of adrenaline directly into my heart. I mean it was probably a week's worth of dopamine in my brain, dumped all at once, but still. At this point I want to cry, again, though this time not in pain or frustration but rather pure elation such as I haven't felt in a while. I did it. I completed the Trial of the Sword. And the final trials only took me two attempts.
I'm much better at this game now than I was four years ago.
I promptly take my glowing stick and use it to club Thunderblight Ganon to death.

Volition attempts to keep you on the straight and narrow but it also wants to keep you from your past. It cares more about your immediate well-being than the necessary pain you have to endure to move on from the trauma thats haunting you.
Its always the one to try and shut down any attempts to learn or remember Dora, a step that has to happen for you to move on.
Repressing your insanity wont make you any less insane, at least not on the inside, not in the long run.
Edit: I want to specify I'm talking about volition in the context of volition dominant harry ie the way people view volition as the stat that has your best interest in mind overall.
((Volition Hold yourself together. Keep your Morale up.
Cool for: Sane People, Well-Adjusted Cops, The Non-Suicidal
Volition urges you to be a good guy – to others and to yourself. It enables you to resist temptation: be it in a bottle, between a pair of legs, or at the end of an iron barrel which promises oblivion. Volition gives you the will to finish the investigation, improving your Morale – one of the two health pools in the game.
At high levels, Volition makes you hyper-sane. When you’re about to get funky, it keeps you normal. It’s a bit of a party-pooper. At low levels, however, you’ll have little Morale. Without it, you’ll be a profoundly unstable cop, falling apart at the seams as you make irreversible mistakes.))

I have two issues about my male cat that is around 10 years old. Before I start, he has had a history of kidney stones and he recently went to his check up for any further stone development and they said he was all clear.
So first he has been constantly throwing up. He is on special food ( Hills Prescription Diet: Kidney Care ) and I'm wondering if it might be the food that is causing him to throw up a lot? The throw up is brown ( the color of the wet food ) and sometimes there are little pieces of his hard food. So it's not hairballs or bile. Just him throwing up his food. He is acting normal and I don't notice a change in his behavior.
Secondly he is peeing inside and outside of his box. The vet said because my sister is staying here for a little while and she has a small dog, that this could be the reason he's peeing outside the box to mark his territory. How do I get him to stop this? He pees near the front door, and it's not really a spot that I can put another box or people will trip over it walking in the door. I also keep his box cleaned daily and fully change weekly so I don't think it is him being stubborn about a dirty box.
Just looking for some advice on these behaviors. Like I said he's been to the vet about two weeks ago. They gave him a clean bill of health. So I don't know.

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.
________________________
By The Vesper's Bell

To cut right to the chase, I, 24F, am a student teacher, a mom, and a wife. So that means I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. I am towards the end of my student teaching and I have to complete a four part project that hinges upon me graduating. My husband has been a stir crazy as he has been working from home the past few months. He is an active outdoorsmen, which means he absolutely hates staying inside all day. The more he stays inside, the more his mental health is impacted. So every once every month or so, he heads for the outdoors in another neighboring state while I stay home with our toddler. Normally, I have no problem taking on full responsibility to watch our toddler, but my project is due in two weeks and I already have a lot of other things on my to do list. So I asked if he could wait a bit. He told me that it has been almost two months since his last trip and he was really noticing his mental health declining, especially as it does in the winter. Knowing that I probably would feel the effects of not allowing him to go, I decided it would just be easier to say yes. I am feeling the regret since my toddler is teething and getting three teeth in, which means I can't do much of anything done. On the other hand, I know he is much better off for getting some fresh air. So reddit, AITA for asking my husband to stay home in the first place?

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.

I know this is very late in the game to be realizing this, but I realize I made a mistake on the Courses & Grades section of my CommonApp. In 9th grade German, second trimester, I had a 7/7 on my transcript, but I wrote a 6/7 on Courses & Grades. My counselor sent in my HS transcript, so universities will be able to see the correct version there, but I am still worried sick.
I have a likely letter from Columbia and several acceptances already under my belt, and now I am REALLY panicking and worried sick. Would universities rescind my offer for this mistake? Since my HS transcript has the correct grade and I the grade I wrote was lower than my actual grade, will I be OK? Do universities use my official transcript, or do they use CommonApp Courses & Grades to make their decisions? Is it worth emailing the universities this late in the game?
SOMEBODY, PLEASE HELP. THIS IS EATING ME UP FROM THE INSIDE.
Edit: I just checked and realized Courses & Grades is only considered by Stanford and NYU (both of which aren't out yet), so this will have no bearing on my Columbia decision. That said, the questions still stand with regard to Stanford and NYU, though the stakes are no longer as high.

Am I The Bad Apple for forcing my parents to stay at hotel and not inviting them to my wedding?
My name is Tomas. I am 28 male and I live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada with my boyfriend Nate who is the same age. Nate is severely alergic to cat hair. In March 2022, my mother and father came to my city to get a their cat fixed. Nate doesn't really have the best relationship with my mother. In the past my mother had sent him messages about wishing he didn't get the job as a teacher. At a Christmas dinner she yelled at him for being two minutes late because we had to wait for a CN freight train even though it wasn't his fault. Anyways, since the appointment was at 8am in the morning they asked me if they could stay the night, because they didn't want to drive the 2 hours to the Vet in the morning. I love cats and they were everything to me when I lived with my parents, however knowing my boyfriend's alergies, in the text message I sent her like a week before the appointent, I said yes as long as they had their cat stay at a kennel or shelter overnight and that she wasn't mean to my husband. My mother was like why? I told her my boyfriend was alergic to cat hair and that Nate didn't want her to be mean to him. She just replied with "okay see you then". I thought they got the message, but the next day my mother sent me a message about asking if the cat could stay in a side room that we don't go in. I asked Nate about his opinion and he said he didn't want to risk it. I told her "no, the cat will just have to stay at a shelter or somewhere else." She responded with, "We want to be able to stay with our cat and we don't want pay for a shelter or hotel." I said, "I sorry but the last thing I want is for my boyfriend to have an alergic reaction one week before his birthday." The didn't text back. Later that evening they arrived at our house, the first thing I saw when they knocked on the door was a kennel with a cat inside. I was like, "what are you doing? I told you not to bring the cat." They responded with, "We want to stay with our cat and don't want to pay for a shelter. You used to love cats what's happened with you?" I was like, "I loves cats and yes I get why you want to stay with your cat, but if my boyfriend is alergic to cats and can't have cats around I'm going to follow his health orders." They were extremely pissed off and said how they didn't want to pay for a shelter for like the 5th time. We were in the middle of the argument when Nate got home from work. My parents went up him and proceeded to scold him for being alergic to cats. Nate replied with, "I was alergic since I was a baby and I can't control it." They even brought up the idea about Nate being my boyfriend if he is alergic to cats. I had told them already. They brought up, "it would just be for one night" Nate and I told them we don't want to risk it. At that point I was done, and I told them "if you are going to be mean to me or my husband and won't follow our rule about no cats allowed then you are going to have to stay at a hotel." They were mad and brought up the absurd idea of Nate staying at a hotel. I said no and told them to get out before I call the cops. They finally left and my mother sent me and Nate mean messages about not letting them stay with the cat and about having to stay at a dirty hotel and paying for a shelter. I just ignored them except the one about me being on Nate's side instead of theirs. I responded with, "This is Nate's house too. I live with Nate and he is amazing. I am always going to back him up and help him out if he needs it and for you two not following the health orders me and Nate put in place for the house is very disrepectful especially as my parents." The text messages that followed were about them being suprised I would for care for Nate over acommodating for them. I got mad and blocked them. A week later, I proposed to Nate on his birthday. I didn't even bother telling my parents about our engagement. With mine and Nate's wedding coming, I didn't invite my parents knowing that my mother way going to be mean to Nate and given the whole situation I had gone through with the cat. After hearing about my parents not being invited my sister who I usually go to for advice told me a day after the wedding that I should have reconsidered kicking them out and not inviting them. I didn't want my parents to mar the atmosphere of the wedding.
The wedding was nice and spectacular and I will always back up Nate, but I am kind of confused if I made the right decision. I need to know Am I The Bad Apple?

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Can be updated i delete the tags so you'll exactly go through the links Never accuse me of not saying my sources update one
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Knighted in 1994 for his contributions to science, Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS, is an English mathematical physicist, mathematician and philosopher.
The extraordinary scope of his work ranges from quantum physics and theories of human consciousness to relativity theory and observations on the structure of the universe. Penrose is internationally renowned for his scientific work in mathematical physics, in particular for his contributions to general relativity and cosmology. His primary interest is in a field of geometry called tesselation, the covering of surfaces with tiles of different shapes.
Among numerous prizes and awards, he received the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their contribution to our understanding of the universe.
He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College.
"There is a current view that consciousness is something which arises from some complicated computation. So we have our computers, and people think that because they can do things amazingly fast, and they can calculate very quickly, and they can play chess extremely well, that they are superior to us even, and it is only some complicated aspect of this computational activity that somehow consciousness arises from that. Now my view is quite different from this. I think there is a lot of computational activity going on in the brain, but this is basically unconscious. So consciousness seems to me to be something quite different."
For more information about the GF2045 congress, please visit http://www.GF2045.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXTX0IUaOg
This is the paranormal study division / https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/our-research/
This is the field girl a evidence of awareness frome doctor burns https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/22/1165131907/neuroplasticity-plasticity-glass-half-full-girl is this woman has lost half brain of her left side it showed not to hold her back it made her better and shes perfectly aware angst all odds showing the mind is stronger than most think
This is my study welcome
This part is different someone has passed away and there getting part of my studies mrs holly the teacher that played a big role on who am today rest in peace i hope your in a better place she was the one she will be remembered forever
Near-Death Experiences are intensely vivid and often life-transforming experiences, many of which occur under extreme physiological conditions such as trauma, ceasing of brain activity, deep general anesthesia or cardiac arrest in which no awareness or sensory experiences of any kind should be possible according to the prevailing views in neuroscience. View Dr. Bruce Greyson’s informative personal Website.
A near-death experience, or NDE, is a common pattern of events that many people experience when they are experiencing intense threat, are seriously ill or come close to death. Although NDEs vary from one person to another, they often include such features as the following: feeling very comfortable and free of pain a sensation of leaving the body, sometimes being able to see the physical body while floating above it the mind functioning more clearly and more rapidly than usual a sensation of being drawn into a tunnel or darkness a brilliant light, sometimes at the end of the tunnel a sense of overwhelming peace, well-being, or absolute, unconditional love a sense of having access to unlimited knowledge a “life review,” or recall of important events in the past a preview of future events yet to come encounters with deceased loved ones, or with other beings that may be identified as religious figures While these features are commonly reported, many NDEs differ from this pattern and include other elements. For example, some near-death experiences may be frightening or distressing rather than peaceful. We are interested in hearing about all kinds of near-death and similar experiences, and in studying their effect on persons who have them. Veridical NDEs We are particularly interested in studying NDEs that may bear on the question of whether the mind can function outside the physical body, and on whether we may survive bodily death. One such type of experience is the so-called veridical NDE, in which experiencers acquire verifiable information that they could not have obtained by any normal means. For example, some experiencers report seeing events going on at some distant location, such as another room of the hospital; or an experiencer might meet a deceased loved one who then communicates verifiable information the experiencer had not known. Other kinds of NDEs that may bear on the mind/body question include those in which mental functioning seems to be enhanced despite physiological evidence that the brain is impaired. The causes of NDEs are complex and not fully known. While many medical and psychological explanations have been offered, they remain speculative and often fall short of explaining the entire phenomenon. Participate in Research:
1) Investigating physician barriers to acceptance of near-death experiences-IRB-SBS Protocol #5305 Call for research with physicians who have had a near-death experience. Dr. Marieta Pehlivanova and Dr. Bruce Greyson are recruiting physicians who have had a near-death experience (NDE) for an online study. The purpose of the study is to learn about physicians’ attitudes toward NDEs. These are personal and deeply transformative experiences that patients can experience when they are in a medical crisis or close to death. Patients sometimes report the feeling of leaving their bodies, going through a tunnel, strong positive emotions, and a sense of having a life review, among others. Because of the impact of NDEs on experiencers’ lives, patients sometimes talk about these experiences with their physicians. This research aims to improve these interactions. We are interested in your participation even if you have not had patients who have reported an NDE. Participation in the study will take about 15 minutes of your time and will consist of an anonymous online questionnaire. You are eligible to participate if you are 18 years of age or older, are a physician in any specialty, have had a near-death experience, and are fluent in English. This research project has been approved by the University of Virginia’s Institutional Review Board for the Social Sciences (protocol #530 If you are a physician who has had a near-death experience, are fluent in English, and you are interested in participating in this study, please contact the investigators at [email protected] and [email protected] .
2) Near-Death Experiences, IRB-SBS Protocol #3365: Bruce Greyson and Marieta Pehlivanova are conducting ongoing research into NDEs. If you are over age 18, currently healthy, and would like to share a near-death experience of any type with the researchers at the Division of Perceptual Studies, please share your experience via Contact Us. 3) Near-Death Experiences: Comparing Two Scales of Near-Death Experience Features, IRB-SBS Protocol #4885 Call for research participants who have had a near-death experience Dr. Bruce Greyson and Dr. Marieta Pehlivanova at the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies are recruiting individuals who have had a near-death experience (NDE) for an online study. These are personal and transformative experiences that sometimes happen when one is close to death or under the threat of death. This research asks for your opinion about the wording of questionnaires about NDEs and will allow researchers to improve these questionnaires to better reflect the experiences people have. Participation in the study will take up to 20 minutes of your time and will consist of a single online questionnaire. You are eligible to participate if you have had an NDE, are 18 years of age or older, and are fluent in English. You will not be paid for your participation. If you are interested in enrolling in this study, please contact Marieta Pehlivanova for the link to fill out the survey ( [email protected]). Please do not fill out this questionnaire more than once, if you receive it from different sources. Thank you for your support of this important research. Near-death experiencer Anita Moorjani and Dr. Brian Walker
Dr. Bruce Greyson, Anita Moorjani and Dr. Brian Walker visiting DOPS, May 2019 Author and NDE experiencer Anita Moorjani, and her former doctor at the time of her profound NDE, Dr. Brian Walker, visited Dr. Greyson in May of 2019 to exchange rich, thought-provoking ideas around the fascinating topic of near-death experiences. Dr. Brian Walker and Anita recorded an interesting interview while they were visiting us at the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies. We invite you to watch this video of Anita Moorjani and Dr. Brian Walker. Dr. Walker was a witness to Anita’s severely deteriorated medical condition before she had her profound near-death experience. In her best selling book “Dying to Be Me“, Anita writes about the life affirming changes she experienced after her NDE. In the book she describes the events and serious medical illness which led to her profound near-death experience. Near-death experiencers Anita Moorjani and Dr. Authors and near-death experiencers Eben Alexander and Anita Moorjani had complex, medically documented illnesses at the time they experienced their profound, life-altering near-death experiences. Both were gravely ill and their recoveries in both cases astounded and perplexed the attending medical professionals. Eben wrote a best selling book describing his transformative near-death experience and the dire medical circumstances leading up to them. His best selling book is called “Proof of Heaven“. Eben Alexander granted Dr. Greyson permission to review his medical records resulting in Dr. Greyson’s academic analysis of this case which can be seen here (pdf). Anita and Eben attended a meeting of the DOPS researchers to talk about their NDEs. We enjoyed a fascinating discussion with them regarding the many layers of life affirming aftereffects of near-death experiences. https://www.everystudent.com/features/is-there-a-god.html
Have you ever heard the claim Quantum Mechanics demonstrates the universe can come into existence from absolutely nothing? Well this is not entirely true and it in no way replaces the need for a designer.
Sources: Lawrence Krauss - A Universe from Nothing
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• Video
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Our consciousness is a fundamental aspect of our existence, says philosopher David Chalmers: "There's nothing we know about more directly.... but at the same time it's the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe." He shares some ways to think about the movie playing in our heads.