All Chapters of How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

“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

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

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

“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

Speedrunning a video game is something you can only do if you really know your shit. You have to not only be familiar with the basics of the game, you have to know when to fight, when to dodge, and which mobs you can ignore altogether.Hardcore boss that requires twenty minutes of button-bashing and perfect timing on your backward roll and flip to beat? Jump over this wall, shimmy across a ledge not even the game designers knew was there, and save yourself the frustration of having to press the same button combination fifteen times in a row.You might think, what’s the point of rushing through a lavishly-designed level without engaging with all the content available? The answer is very simple — because someone decided you should do things in a certain order, and fuck them.I slid into the water feet first and gave no thought to clawing my way back to the surface. I crossed my arm, pointed my toes down and took a deep breath as the green-grey sheet swallowed me, and