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130. Head in the Clouds
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2021-09-13 17:13:33Related chapters
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 131. Sorcerers Vs Warlocks
“Aren’t sorcerers and warlocks the same thing?” I said. “They both do magic, right?”“To some extent,” said Bibler. “It’s how they do it that separates them. But I am a mere amateur when it comes to these matters. I just fiddle with knobs.” He waved the box in his hands at me. “There are other people who can explain the intricacies of the dark arts far better than I.”“Like this guy from our world?” asked Maurice. “What’s his name?”“We call him First,” said Bibler, “because he always acts before anyone else — it’s very impressive. As for his real name, I should probably leave that to him. He’s very sensitive about such matters. Doesn’t like people talking behind his back. And always seems to know when you’ve been doing it. The power of a warlock.” He rolled his eyes dramatically.It was all very mysterious. And possibly a bunch of lies.“Shall we go?” said Bibler, like we were the best of friends. Mind you, he did have the only ride in town (or just
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 132. Time of Your Life
The assassin from the skies (or some rafter in the dingy ceiling) appeared to be a young man, small and wiry, and now dead. He lay in a crumpled heap at the feet of a number of very surprised guards.“What’s the point of killing someone when he’ll just come back to life?” Jenny asked in a hushed voice.I shrugged. “I know. Kind of defeats the whole concept of assassination, so why was he even bothering in the first place? Mind you, we could just ask him when he comes back to life.”Claire unfolded her wad of papers and wrote something down. She tugged on Bibler’s sleeve. “Doesn’t the fact General Dorma was targeted mean the Masters know he’s working against them?”Bibler’s attention, like the rest of the tavern, was on the body on the floor. Even the men standing around it were transfixed by its sudden appearance from above. Bibler slowly rotated his head away from the scene. “I don’t think this has anything to do with the Masters. This establishment is a br
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 133. Born to Run
Just because this world didn’t consider dying the ultimate end, didn’t mean there was nothing to fear. There are worse things than death.My sudden promotion to leader of the Nekromel Liberation Army didn’t make me want to go out and buy myself a new sabre to rattle. I was in danger of being railroaded into a situation I’d have no control over and which would land me in the middle of a fight I had nothing to do with.General Dorma probably expected me to jump at the chance of being in charge — people with a thirst for power usually assume others must crave it as much as they do.Or, he might have expected me to be too cowed by the huge crowd to object. The many, many desperate faces looked eager to accept me as their saviour. They would have accepted a donkey in a bad wig as their commander-in-chief if they thought it would save them. I had no intention of saving anyone but myself.Finding my way out of this predicament was the problem. Public speaking has n
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 134. All You Need is Phil
“I already have a group of people I’m...” What exactly was I doing with them? “...tooling around with.”“Of course,” said Phil. “We all end up with people in our lives, somehow. But I’ll tell you something, Colin, that’s the first time the Masters have sent out a worldwide broadcast looking for one person. Everyone knows about it. Everyone’s talking about ‘The Colin’. Nobody mentioned the rest of your team.”He tilted his head as though suggesting his point had been made, which I suppose it had. Only I was stupid enough to put myself on the enemy’s radar.“No,” said Phil. “Before you start thinking they’re the lucky ones for keeping their heads down, you wouldn’t have been marked out as different if there wasn’t something to mark out. You have the ability — you can choose to use it or you can spread it so thin among all the people you’re trying to keep afloat that you all end up drowning. You get me?”What he was saying wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean lea
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 135. How to Make Fiends and Influence People
I’m sure you, like me, have seen your fair share of horror movies. And you’ve been dumbfounded by how stupid the people in them behaved.It’s almost like the people in those movies have never seen a horror movie themselves. Never been to their local multiplex and sat down to watch a bunch of teenagers go, “Hey, what’s that noise? Sounds like someone sharpening knives in the attic... I’ll go take a look.”If you had managed to catch the occasional scary movie, or one of the deluge of sequels relentlessly being fed into cinemas like corn forced down the gullet of ducks and geese, you might consider leaving your house if the walls start bleeding.Perhaps not going down to investigate when you hear a scratchy voice singing nursery rhymes in the basement.Maybe politely asking the naked woman with slit wrists who suddenly appears in your bathtub to leave because you need to use the toilet and you find it difficult to piss with somebody watching.There alwa
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 136. Plan of Attack
The empty tavern looked like a building site. The hole in the ceiling went all the way up to the roof to reveal a dull, white sky. I wondered if there was a girl working in the room above when the demon came through. The earth certainly would have moved for her and her client.I patted my leg. A strange sensation lingered where the Jester had grabbed hold of me. Even though it had been in my mind, I still felt the touch.“It’s amazing how the Jester found us,” said Phil. He looked pale and unsteady on his feet. “You must have a very special relationship.”“Well, it offered to get jiggy with me a number of times.”“Did you ask for it?” said Jenny.“That’s right. You know me, incurable flirt when it comes to monsters made of fear and shit-yourself-dust.”David rushed back in from the street where he had been making sure everyone went in different directions. Each of the regulars had picked up a chunk of bloody demon flesh, stuck it under their sh
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 137. The Disorient Express
“What about Terry?” said Claire. “She was a woman. I mean, she still is. I suppose she’s come back to life by now.”It was difficult to know what tense to talk about people in when they were constantly killing themselves.“Yes, you’re right,” I said. “I guess it’s only in this city that women are missing. Or hiding. Or something else.”“Yo’ don’t think the men are going to do summit to us, do yo’?” Flossie was sitting up on the bed, momentarily distracted from her hunger pangs.A shiver ran through everyone. If this was a world where women were in high demand and low supply, it didn’t bode well.“I don’t know,” I said. “If they were desperate for girls, you’d think someone would have made a move already. When we were in the crowd, no one looked at you like that, did they?”The girls paused to think about it.“No,” said Jenny. “If anything, it was the opposite. They went out of their way not to notice us.”“Even if there is a reaso
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 138. Yuqi Yuqi Yuqi
How do you handle a situation where you’re hopelessly outmatched? Come up with a one-in-a-million longshot and hope to get lucky? My track record suggested not.Yuqi, a fellow Visitor from Planet Earth, loomed over me, a spiral of warped vines twisted into an approximation of the female form constructed from giant pipe cleaners. Only the head manifested any kind of permanence; a ball with limp horns hanging on either side. A jester with killer material.The only weapons available to me were my quickness of thought and ability to engage my opponent on a psychological level.“Ah, so, you’re a girl?”Okay, perhaps not the smartest thing to say to the living embodiment of your nightmares. Some women might even take offence at the question. Femininity, or the lack of, can be a sore point for those females with a more robust physique. Bodybuilders, Olympic athletes, giant demonic beings... it can be a touchy subject.“Yes,” the voice rumbled like colliding
Last Updated : 2021-09-13
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How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 244. Don’t Forget to Breathe
Claire stabbed me. She didn’t know I was in here, but would that have made a difference?The moment the blade entered my chest, I felt a rush of cold go through me like smoke through a keyhole. Everything began shaking. I was falling apart.“What are yo’ doing?” screamed Flossie.“It’s not him,” said Maurice. “Colin’s safe. This is just his body. We have to stop them now, or we’ll never get another chance.”It had never been a great body, but ‘just his body’ seemed a little harsh.Was this part of some big plan? Maurice had always been good at seeing patterns and drawing conclusions. He wasn’t always right, but he was starting to have faith in himself. They all were. Dangerous times.If you joined up the dots and they formed a picture, it would make sense to assume that’s the picture you were meant to find. Maurice had decided this was the picture he had seen. Kill Peter, kill Wesley. Leave no one powerful enough to threaten the rest of us.
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 243. The Older Woman
By this point, I considered darkness to be an old friend. Considering how my friends had been treating me of late, my buddy darkness was probably hiding monsters that would eat my face.The voice I’d heard had sounded feminine, although I wasn’t about to assume gender. These days, that sort of thinking can get you in all sorts of trouble. If it was a woman, my track record with females in dark places wasn’t good, but I wasn’t about to generalise about that either.Yes, women had treated me poorly, often trying to kill me, torture me and nag me to death. I didn’t hold a grudge. Women aren’t all the same. I never think, Oh, yes, she’s just like all the others. They’re all individuals. They each have their own preferred method for ruining your life. Some of them even do it by ignoring you. They’re my favourite.I listened for any follow-up threats. There were always follow-up threats. Everyone had too much fun arranging my demise to not announce their plans.No
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 242. Further Beyond
It wasn’t like Claire suddenly transforming was a bad thing. When the Fire Nation attacks, you want someone to change into their Avatar state. She was more Korra than Aang, but who knew what she was capable of now?I suddenly felt a sense of loss at not having Maurice around to swap pop culture analogies with. It’s all very well having people standing beside you in times of trouble, but it leaves an unsatisfactory feeling when they don’t understand your references.We had a giant Elf with a handful of twats coming at us, so Claire going blue-eyes white dragon was a good thing, even if she had no idea what a blue-eyes white dragon was. Whatever had been behind the wall in the crypt, it had presumably exited via Claire and taken up residence.Normally, that would be a cause for concern. How often has the thing bricked up inside a church been a chill dude who got trapped by accident? No, it was always some abused child whose vengeful spirit was now going to wreak havo
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 241. Sister of No Mercy
“But why?” asked Claire, her hands shaking by her side.Maurice had a ferocious grin on his face, the kind only severe embarrassment can produce. Despite any reasons and justifications he might have, when you get caught doing something you know you shouldn’t do — because all the Pixar movies you’ve ever seen have clearly identified it for you — there’s no way to stop your body from producing all the ‘oh fuck’ hormones it contains, and sending them to your face.“You went inside my mind and took my memories from me.” This was what Claire was really upset about. Not that Maurice had betrayed us and aligned himself with the enemy, but that he had crossed her personal boundaries.“It wasn’t like that,” whispered Maurice. He was keeping his words quiet as though they would hurt less that way, but they filled the silent crypt we were standing in. “I did what I thought was best.”“Best?! You thought lying to me was best?” The surprise of it was wearing off now, and
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 240. Cockblocula
It might have seemed a bit risky to call out Joshaya. He was the person I’d been trying to avoid, after all. If him catching up with me unravelled Maurice’s power, meeting him could kill me. But that was also why it was safe to do so.If this version of Arthur was really Joshaya, then I’d already been in his presence, even told him I was dead, and was still alive.If I was wrong, it wouldn’t change anything, and if I was right, I should already be dead. Unless there was more to this whole being dead business than first appeared.I didn’t need to understand exactly how all this mumbo jumbo worked to realise whoever was holding death over my head as a threat, was also making sure I didn’t die.Not to blow my own horn (every boy’s dream), but I was important enough to keep alive. They needed me. Which gave me some leverage. Until I became so irritating that they gave up on their plans and killed me anyway.Joshaya rose to a vertical position like some un
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 239. Planning for the Future
We headed out of the temple with two of our members in wheelbarrows. Normally this would require some explaining. People don’t just push around unconscious bodies in gardening equipment, unless it’s a stag do that’s going very well.In this case, however, we were aided by the presence of druids, the local religious weirdos who everyone did their best to ignore.Coupled with the fact we were coming out of the temple everyone believed could do no wrong (never fails to amaze me how ready the faithful are to confuse turn the other cheek with turn a blind eye) and they assumed we must have had a good reason to use this particular form of public transportation.The crowds in the square simply parted for us as they went about their business. My own thoughts were preoccupied with the strong suspicion that Arthur, the one in the crypt, was another manifestation of Joshaya. The roleplaying was of a very high standard, and the cosmetic touches were really well done, but there
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 238. Lead Me Not into Temptation
“Destroy? You mean as in kill? You want to kill Peter.” The voice, for all its unsettling menace — hard to come across as anything else when you’re emanating from a stone coffin — had a tinge of genuine shock to it. He was horrified by the prospect of what I’d suggested. “Oh, I couldn’t do that. Absolutely not.”Disappointing.“You don’t control dead people, then? You aren’t a necromancer?”“I told you, I’m a vivimancer.”“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of that before. What does it mean?”“It means I can heal, I can prolong life. Other people’s and my own. It’s the reason I’m in here. My body was starved of food and air, but my life force abides.”“You aren’t dead?”“I am and I am not.”“And Peter put you here, but you still don’t want to get him back?”“Not by robbing him of life. I mean, I wouldn’t like it if someone did that to me, so why would I do it to someone else?”Someone had done it to him. I didn’t point this
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 237. Hold the Moan
There were four lights in all. Three smaller one, and the big one that seemed to do all the talking. The red balls hanging in the air suggested eyes, but not in a Sauron ‘I see everything’ kind of way, more a HAL ‘Hello, Dave’ kind of way. A harmonised version of Daisy, Daisy could break out at any moment.There’s a rumour, strongly denied, that HAL, in the movie 2001, was meant to represent the firm IBM. If you take a letter away from each of the letters in I-B-M you get H-A-L.But it was never the hardware that was going to be the problem for the future of mankind. If you made the same kind of movie today, the insane AI watching your every move would be something more like Facebook, but you’d face the same problem. You couldn’t use the name without getting sued. You’d have to take a letter away from each of its initials to make up a completely fictitious evil company. FB would become... Oh, wait.“You have returned to set us free,” said the big light. There was a
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 236. Freedom for All
Jenny was not happy. She was the sort of person who prided herself on not being a nag. She presented herself as a supportive partner willing to back me up in whatever retarded idea I came up with. She’d tell me it was retarded, but that wouldn’t stop her having my back.Which is cool. People should only tell you not to do something if they have a better option. One they know works due to experience and wisdom, not because they think it will help them whore karma on Reddit.Under those conditions, hardly anyone would get to tell anyone else what to do. People would make mistakes, of course, but they would be valuable mistakes that would help the person grow and improve.This time, however, Jenny was not in the mood to stand by and allow me to go skipping off into the jaws of danger. Not without her mooring line firmly attached.“If he disconnects himself from me,” said Jenny, “won’t he die? I thought I was the only thing keeping him alive.”“Yes. Techn
