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63. Lizard Blizzard
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2021-09-13 17:13:27Related chapters
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 64. The Mandy Project
“What we need,” I said, “is somewhere nice and quiet to hide out.”“If I’m not mistaken,” said Dudley, “there are some trees in that direction.” He pointed back the way we’d come.I hadn’t seen any trees, but then I didn’t have Dudley’s superior eyesight. We headed off in the direction Dudley had indicated and sure enough, an hour so later, we found ourselves in a wooded area.We put up the tents, built a fire pit and sorted out a latrine. It was all very efficiently done. Jenny and Mandy must have thought of us as quite the pros. Ah, if only they knew the truth.We had three tents between seven people, but since there needed to be someone on watch at all times, it wasn’t too hard to sort out sleeping arrangements. First watch went to me and my good friend Mandy.Once the others had gone to bed, I sat down by the sunken fire and took out my sword (no, that’s not a euphemism). I looked up to see Mandy staring at me from the opposite side of the fire.
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 65. Night Of The Living Zombers
There was a mad rush as everyone grabbed their weapons. I already had mine in my hand so I was ready. Kind of.I had played a lot of video games where you killed zombies. I had also watched many zombie movies. So, I had a rough idea of what to expect — hitting them in the head was the only way to stop them, and if they bit you, you turned into one — but did those rules apply here?You also had to take into consideration which type of zombie you were dealing with. The slow, weak ones that overwhelmed you with numbers? The fast crazy ones who ran up walls? Neither would be fun, but the slower ones at least gave you the option to run away.Was it even a zombie Flossie had seen?Everyone started asking Flossie what exactly she had encountered, which only made her more flustered. A low moan shut them all up.“Nnnnnghhhhh.”We all pointed our weapons in the direction of the noise. And then the answer to all our questions came shuffling into camp, dra
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 66. Zomber, Please
Jespert talked the whole time we spent packing up our gear. The pleasure of a vegetarian diet. The needless horror of animal slaughter. The unethical practices of farmers and butchers. It went on and on.He continued talking as we set off, and he talked even more as we made our way from the woods into the marshes all the way to the open fields beyond.His voice was loud and unremitting. With lizardmen in the area, it might have been unwise to make so much noise but in all fairness if they heard someone expounding on the link between broccoli smoothies and regular bowel movements, I expect they’d run in the opposite direction.Once he’d eaten the clovis Flossie had given him, Jespert no longer shuffled around like one of the undead and traipsed through the tall grass. We followed behind, somewhat dazed by the onslaught of preachy scolding and barely passable logic.“If you bake aubergine with the right spices, it tastes exactly like chicken.”It was ma
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 67. Hope Vs Expectation
Food was brought out and served. Various people came up and introduced themselves and asked questions about where we’d come from and where we were going. Well, they asked the others. After my faux pas, I was ignored.I sank into the background, which I happened to be very good at, and hoped everyone would forget I was there (another of my great talents).They didn’t get many Visitors and news of the outside world was hard to come by for them, so there was a lot of interest. The kids especially weren’t used to new people and shyly hung around the table as we ate.You might think having an audience of zombers watching while you eat would be a bit off-putting, but even though they looked like monsters, their appearance quickly lost its shock value. The children in particular were hard to see as anything other than kids with an unfortunate affliction.The food was quite good. It was like a mushroom stroganoff and pretty spicy. I finished in record time and would
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 68. Tunnels & Trolls
The question of whether we should stay or go was quickly put to rest the following morning. Jespert woke us with a hearty good morning and well wishes for our trip through the tunnels. It was clear he expected us to vacate the premises forthwith.After a breakfast of mushroom porridge with a little mushroom jam and a cup of tea (yes, mushroom tea), Jespert took us through some dark passages to a stairwell leading to a lower level.None of the zombers had come to see us off. I suppose the novelty had worn off and they had better things to do. We weren’t exactly legendary heroes setting off on a quest to save the world, just some random people passing through.The crypt was a surprisingly large structure, and somehow claustrophobic at the same time. I tried to think of it like a museum exhibit, although most museums don’t bother with cobwebs and damp. It would have been creepy enough being down there with full fluorescent lighting and a gift shop, but with just a cou
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 69. Breakout
Before I arrived in this world, I had never been in a fight. I kept to myself at school and did my best not to get involved. In anything. This way, I successfully managed to avoid getting the shit beaten out of me. It was a pretty rough school in North London, so the beating would have been quite severe.Once I left school, it wasn’t too hard to stay out of trouble. Nobody showed much interest in me and I didn’t go out of my way to provoke people. You have to be noticed to be punched.However, that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Learning how to take a punch is a useful skill, especially in world where everyone’s running around trying to kill everyone else.The troll who hit me didn’t use his full strength. All he did was tap me on the forehead with his finger. When I came round, I was on the floor with Claire leaning over me.“Are you okay?” She sounded genuinely concerned for me, which was worrying.I put a hand to my head, which hurt like a motherf
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 70. Troll-In-Chief
Maurice and Claire looked at each other, then somewhat reluctantly sat down next to me.“I can’t believe you,” said Mandy. “This is our only hope of getting out of here.”“Then go with him,” I said. “If you make it out, live a happy life and enjoy the fact you were right and I’ll spend the rest of my life rotting away in here. With them. That should be revenge enough for you.”“I’m really going to hit him,” said Claire.Mandy turned to Claire. “And you agree with him?”Claire’s head dropped like her neck had lost all strength. “Ugh. He has a knack for this sort of thing. It’s hard to explain.”Mandy looked about ready to explode. She turned to Raviva, then back to us, then back to him.“Argghh,” she yelled at the roof of the cave, and then sat down next to Claire.“So, you’re none of you willing to join us?” asked Raviva.“Sorry,” Mandy mumbled. “Looks like we’re going with Plan B. The B stands for bastard.”“Just go
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 71. Dungeons & Divas
It took a couple of tries before Flossie understood the situation. But once she got it, her response was immediate.“You can fook right off. Ah ain’t fighting no one.”“Now hold on, there,” said Dudley. “You know Colin wouldn’t choose you unless he had a plan. Right, Colin?” He looked at me with an expression that said, “Harm my girl and I will strangle you with your own shitty entrails.” I’m paraphrasing.“Of course,” I said like there was nothing to worry about (spoiler alert: there was a lot to worry about). I turned back to Raviva. “So, the weapon of choice will be... voices.”Ah, you see. Nobody said it had to be a battle of physical combat. They might have been huge, lumbering sacks of rocks, but how would that help them in a sing-off?“You want to challenge us to a singing competition?” said Raviva. “I love it! There’s nothing we trolls love more than a good sing-along. They say I was born yodelling as I came out of my mother. Haha! Prepare the
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
