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8. Room for One More?
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2021-09-13 17:13:26Related chapters
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 9. Game Plan
“What I said about killing to survive is true. I know it’s not what anyone of us wants to do, but pretending we can get through this by being decent, reasonable people isn’t going to work.”They all looked at me like I was telling them they had to kill puppies and strangle kittens. Which I was.“If we come up against anything like that ogre, we’re dead. We can run away, but eventually we’re going to have to fight, or starve to death. We have to learn how to kill. None of us is particularly strong or even sporty, which means we have to use a different approach.”“What approach?” said Claire. None of them seemed to have any idea what I was talking about.“We have to be ruthless. And mean. Monsters aren’t going to want to talk things over and find a compromise. There won’t be any trade negotiations on Naboo.”Flossie raised her hand. “Ah don’t know what you’re talking about. What the fook is a Naboo?”“You’ve never seen the Phantom Menace?” said Maurice. “I’m so jealous. Wish I coul
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 10. Walk on the Wild Side
The blacksmith wasn’t in front of his place banging away. The forge still burned fiercely but nobody seemed to be about, or so I thought until I saw a young guy sitting on a stool near the back, dozing. I really wanted to have a proper look around the place, but the guy looked pretty beefy, and I didn’t fancy getting caught snooping.I moved on to the leather store a little further along. This place also seemed deserted. Maybe everyone was off having lunch, or possibly they had a siesta type culture like Spanish people, afternoon nap and then back to work in the evening when things cooled down. Either way it was very quiet, although I suspected the girls who had been working in the back were probably still around.What I was interested in didn’t need me to go inside. I casually walked closer, scanning the floor for any off-cuts or strips of discarded leather. There were actually quite a lot of them. I took a brief look around, dropped to one knee like I was tying my laces (hard to do
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 11. Not Excalibur
The blacksmith’s apprentice folded his arms. “Making a weapon without a hammer won’t be easy. What sort of thing were you thinking?” He raised his hand and rubbed his chin with a calloused thumb.The truth was I wasn’t thinking of anything. I had come up with the idea he could make me a weapon just so I could get something for free. I certainly had no plans to go looking for a superior beast. I had visions of talking gorillas hunting me down on horseback with nets.“Erm, well, what about something with a sharp point? If I could stab it in the eye or the ear I might get lucky and kill it in one shot.”He nodded. Apparently he knew what I meant, even though I was making it up on the spot. He moved over to a box on a table and clinked and clanked through it until he found a metal rod. It looked pretty old and worn, roughly the length of my forearm. A railing from a garden gate or something like that.Over the next half hour he heated up the middle of the rod in the forge, pulling and
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 12. Lock and Load
Just before I walked through the shed door, I had a sudden urge to make a sharp 180 and go off on my own. Whenever I played an MMO on my computer, I chose to play solo. Online games are designed to be a social activity. You can speak to people as you play, plan out and coordinate your attacks, chat about this and that. You share the highs and lows, the laughter and the tears.Not me. I liked to explore alone and try to deal with monsters on my own. It took longer, but it was just a lot less stressful that way. Of course, I would occasionally join a group to do a dungeon or a raid, but more often than not you’d run into a bunch of arseholes.People who took the game too seriously, swore and screamed at anyone who made a mistake or didn’t already know the mob attack patterns, and generally used the game as their personal venting platform. And then there was the whining when it came to rolling for loot...Playing solo meant you could do what you want, make as many mistakes as it took,
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 13. A Hunting We Will Go
We left the shed and headed east. Everyone was very impressed I knew which direction east was, but I told them how I found out, quickly lowering their expectations.I could have let them believe I had an innate ability to know where I was going, but then they might have started relying on me to tell them what to do. Some people like that sort of thing — being looked up to, asked their opinion, admired. Best way to make yourself look an idiot, in my experience.We quickly came to the fields of wheat Kizwat had mentioned, ringed by a wooden fence. On the way into town, Grayson had made it clear fields were to be walked around, not through. Apparently, only in movies is it considered acceptable to run through a field trampling all the crops.It meant it would take us longer to get to the other side, but we needed the time to get used to the slings.The person who had most problems was Flossie. She would get it whizzing around her head and then be unable to get it to stop. She would tr
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 14. Kill the Wabbit
We finally worked our way around the wheatfield and reached the other side. A fallow green field on a gentle slope led to the top of a low hill, beyond which there was a huge open area of grass, completely flat and disappearing into the distance in all directions.The country was called Flatland, and I guessed this was why.And everywhere you looked there were rabbits. Hundreds of them.They didn’t look exactly like the rabbits back home. They were about the same size — brown, black and a few white ones — with long, floppy ears, but they had elongated faces, and instead of a pom-pom tuft, a pinkish stub for a tail. They didn’t hop, either. More scurried about.“Aw!” said Flossie. She walked up to the nearest one and picked it up.She picked it up! I was stunned. If it was going to be this easy we’d have five daggers each by sundown.Of course, it was not going to be that easy.The rabbit turned its fluffy face to look at Flossie and then snarled at her, revealing not a cute Bugs
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 15. May I Take Your Coat?
As soon as we got back to Probet, we headed for the tanner’s store, proudly carrying our one rabbit like it was a great accomplishment. Which it was for us, so not surprisingly we felt a little pleased with ourselves.The tanner soon brought us back to earth.“We don’t take the whole thing, just the skin.” He was outside his shop, slicing up a stiff looking piece of leather that had come from some huge animal.“How do we skin it?” Maurice asked. The fact someone spoke other than me was an indication of how far we’d come. At this rate, we’d hit normal in a couple of months.The tanner paused long enough to give us a disparaging look, then continued with cutting the leather with an incredibly sharp pair of shears.“If you show us how to skin this one,” I said, “you can have the skin for free.” It seemed a fair trade. We wouldn’t get any money (although I’m not sure we’d be able to buy a whole lot with one chob), but we’d have learned a new skill, and that was much more important in
Last Updated : 2021-09-13How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis 16. A Gift From Prometheus
It was evening, and the light had started to fade by the time we returned to the shed. Captain Grayson was sitting on the edge of his desk with a stack of grey blankets next to him.“Welcome back,” he said. “I see you’ve been...” His voiced trailed off as he saw the rabbit and he pulled a strange face I couldn’t quite place. “Here, you’ll need these. It gets a little chilly at night.”He handed each of us a blanket. They weren’t very big — more shawl than cloak — made of a scratchy, wiry material. We happily took them from him.“Do you have anything we can use to carry water?” I asked him.He raised an eyebrow at me and then jumped off the desk. He walked over to a wall that had a large cloth hanging over it, which turned out to be curtains. He parted them enough to reach in and pulled out another box. This one had a bunch of water skins in it.I felt a bit irked that he hadn’t told us about them before, but it seemed like it was kind of a test to only give us certain things when
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
