Tuck'd away bar and grill photos

It Is Wednesday My Dudes
But wait, this isn't your ordinary Wholesome Wednesday. We've got some wiki business. The mod team spent some time recently cleaning up our various wikis & guides. The bad news is, some of our categories are really light now.
So here's the deal - to keep our visitor guide and wiki useful, we need your help to refresh it again. For the next few weeks we're going to post one topic, and take the top few (2-5) replies (via upvotes and consensus) from each and use that to update the wiki. Is something listed now that shouldn't be? Well take that feedback too!
This Week's topic:
Bar Food Restaurants: Give me your greasiest dives and hottest wings
The wiki currently lists 5 places:

• The Griffon downtown
• IceHouse Summerville
• Montreaux Summerville
• Surf Bar on Folly
• Tattooed Moose N.CHAS

One date fuck up
We met on a dating app a few months ago, always kind of messages each other off and on talking about going on dates but never did. While I was traveling in Europe, I was feeling myself and she had posted a selfie, she looked good so I messaged her. We ended up deciding to go on a date in her home town, I lived 5 hours away from her at this time.
So during the week, we talked a little bit but not much as I’m really not the best texter. Eventually, the day came and I drove down; we went to a local museum, although the museum was extremely underwhelming I got to spend time with her. After that we went to dinner and ran some errands, we kissed.
I could tell she had a good heart and was the type of girl I could date, she was looking for and had everything I wanted in a woman.
So after everything, we went back to her place, she invited some friends over and we went out. I got drunk, and wasn’t acting poorly, until I started teasing her about riding the mechanical Bull, saying I could ride it longer than her and that she should give it a shot. Her friend overheard us and he said something to me along the lines of “no means no” but with different phrasing that really made me uncomfortable.
This really bothered me. The last thing I wanted to do was be invited to stay at this woman’s home, and make her feel like I’m some sort of creep or put her into an awkward situation. This has always been something that has bothered me, I don’t like to put women in uncomfortable positions because they already have to deal with so much harassment from men and I promised myself not to be one of those guys.
After he said that I shut down and stopped talking. A few minutes later he pulled me aside, gave me a half ass apology and made up some lie about her telling him it was bothering her, when she was literally by my side smiling and laughing the entire time. But who knows, it could have been.
I drunkily replied “you fucked everything up, I didn’t come down here just to get laid. If I wanted to get “some” I wouldn’t have drove 5 hours, I would’ve stayed back and gotten with some chick there”, I stormed off and ubered back to her place.
Sent her a message saying sorry if I made you uncomfortable or embarrassed you in any sort of way. Whenever you get back, I’ll be in my car, please bring my stuff out to me and knock on the window. I had a complete mental break down in the car.
Eventually I fell asleep. An hour or two passes, she knocks on the window and I don’t remember what I said to her, but it was something along the lines of “ I wasted my time coming here” and she replied “I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
That hurt, because I don’t know why I said what I said, I didn’t mean it.
I tried to fall back asleep but couldn’t. Eventually it was about 5am, and I started to drive back home. I screamed on the car ride home, the amount of negative emotions bundled up inside of me at this time were unreal. It’s been awhile since it happened, and I still feel terrible.
I’ve sent her an apology message, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t think I really embarrassed her, I don’t think anyone really thinks about what actually “happened” at the bar. I was just a drunk guy who walked out and told the girl he came down to see that she was a waste of his time.
I really want to let her know that I enjoyed my time with her and I wish things worked out better. I want a second chance with her to prove myself. I really could see myself being with this woman, despite the distance.
I’m not really sure how to move on from this. Should I just move on?

I had been contacted by the magistrate to investigate a night wedding in the countryside that had involved the loss of human life. There seemed to be a recent rise in tourists involved in ghost dowries over the years. However, from my research I believe it was a man in search of night weddings for personal gain that was the cause of so many deaths.
When I received the request, I was nearby on Green Island, and addressing a rather unique matter even for my line of work. A little girl from the mainland had arrived two weeks prior and claimed to be the recently deceased husband of the grieving widow.
The child claimed to have woken up in the hospital where the doctors informed them that they had drowned and was clinically dead for 4 minutes when the body inexplicably sat upright in the gurney. This would have seemed to be great news, except when the child looked into the mirror, it was not their face staring back at them.
In old Taoist texts I have read of such events, where the bodies of the recently deceased are not put to ground quickly enough, and their souls are left to wander. They could get carried away by the Northeast or Southwest wind. Depending on the location from where they died. And possibly attach to an empty host.
This seemed to be the case, as the wife acknowledged that due to the wet season, they did not bury her husband's body right away. Because the grounds were so wet, that any graves would wash away, leaving corpses laying in the street. Still, I had the responsibility of testing the child. Whom passed a simple test of naming names. Where they used to live. The wife's habits. A conversation they recently had, and even childhood memories. All were confirmed by friends and family. But it would be the child's handwriting that ultimately convinced me. They were a perfect match, down to the signature.
Upon my approval, the villagers had no choice but to accept that this child was indeed the man come back to life. And when I left, he was sitting outside of his house cleaning fish as he had always done for 32 years, except now in the body of a 10 year old girl.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this case as I was needed at the aftermath of the failed night wedding. Ghost dowries have been in use for thousands of years, and traces of it can be found in many different cultures. From the Aztec to the Egyptians, and more recently from old Spain to the streets of Southeast Asia. Though in recent times, only a few remote places continued the practice, and there are a limited number of priests today who are qualified enough to handle such a case. Luckily, I had plenty of experience in this matter.
In my early years, I had married many ghost brides.
And was often asked, "But you're a priest, how can you get married?"
"Zhengyi Taoist priests can choose to take a wife or not. In fact, in order to pass on my Celestial title, I must have an heir."
The man looked distraught, "And you're sure this will stop her from whispering into my ear every night?" He clutched the bag rather tightly.
"Don't you worry," I took the bag from his hands. "Everything will be fine."
We would perform the customary vows and the following night the man reported no more whisperings from his daughter, yet a week later, the police raided my hotel in a different district. The man had claimed that I had swindled him. That his daughter had returned and continued her whispering of terrible, horrible things that he dare not listen. Clanking and banging away in the walls as he covered his ears in fear until sunrise.
Fortunately, I was allowed to prove my innocence.
I returned and stayed in the man's room, waiting with him for signs of his daughter. And surely enough, late in the hour, I heard the wretched scraping and dragging in the walls. The man stopped breathing in his bed and laid perfectly still. Even I was afraid to move as the most dangerous aspects of my job are in the unknown. My mind began racing, wondering if I had somehow botched the night wedding. Or worse, that the ghost bride wasn't his daughter at all, and I had inadvertently given this mysterious entity a special anchor to this world, a holy man.
The walls shook without reason. And a tiny noise could be heard near the man's bedside. He jumped off his mattress and ran to my side. The two of us watched as the noise traveled back and forth against the back wall like wooden clogs.
"My daughter did always carry around a rattle drum when she was little," the man whispered.
"Hush, don't let it capture your breath," I warned him. "Whatever this is, I don't believe it is your daughter. And because of the ritual, we may have increased its hold on this realm."
He whimpered, "Not my daughter?"
I held up my finger and traced the noise as it traveled in an odd form. I began to wonder if the entity was creating some sort of symbol.
"What are you drawing," the man cried.
"It may be creating a portal," I told him. "Now hush before it turns its attention toward us."
"Please, there must be something you can do?"
I reached into my bag and pulled out some incense. I lit the ends and began chanting. From my waist I pulled out a long yellow parchment. And drew on it a sealing spell. "Spirit," I called as I stepped forward. "I am a guiding light." The noise rattled with conviction as I drew closer. "Let me lead you to peace!" And with one quick motion I punched my hand into the wall, clutching the sealing spell in my palm, at the last place I heard the noise. To my displeasure I felt something wriggling in my grasp as something long and thin wrapped itself around my wrist, its end clawing at my forearm. I screamed when I felt its teeth sink between the soft flesh of my thumb and index finger. But I did not let go. Instead I pulled out this demon from the wall and threw it roughly to the ground.
The man screamed as he jumped onto a chair and screamed, "Rat!"
Yes. A simple field rat. That had a trap stuck on its tail which caused its movements to rattle in the wall. That had been rummaging near the man's nightstand because in one of the drawers he had left a bag of watermelon seeds.
Not all cases are this simple, and plenty are true to life supernatural encounters. Over the years my experience has taught me to be more cautious in my evaluations. Which was why when I finally arrived at the house of the massacre due to a failed night wedding. Every hair on my neck stood on end as I tried to be objective as possible.
But there was no denying that something heinous had occurred here. Bodies were still laying on the floor. Some with their faces in the dirt. Some missing their heads completely. And those with their faces up, were unrecognizable. And my first wife leaned into my ear and whispered to me, "This is the work of a ghost bride."
"How do you know?"
"I recognize her anger. It was mine before we were married."
"How do I know what?" A man walking toward me asked. "Are you the priest they called out here?"
He was average built, and in plain clothes, "Detective, why yes. I am here to assist you in anyway that I can."
The detective spit on the ground, "Assist me? As far as I'm concerned we're wasting valuable time carrying on with this hocus pocus bullshit. The killer's trail will be cold by the time we get through all this religious tape." He wafted the air in front of his face, "And the dead bodies boiling out here. This is all your fault as far as I'm concerned. Assist me," he snorted.
"Where there any eyewitnesses, Detective?"
"Several. But they're all saying the same damn thing. Spouting a bunch of nonsense. Which is why those religious nuts down at the station dredged you up."
"All non-relatives to the home owners?"
He snorted again, "Coincidence."
"Let us hope so," I told him. "Because the alternative is much worse." I walked the scene, going around the upturned tables, tracing the steps of carnage in the courtyard, to the main living room. There I saw the body of an old man, both hands clutching his chest, his face was completely missing. "Any surviving family members?"
"Some are still left," he grunted. "But we've gathered most of them under police protection."
"Have you located the husband?"
"Yeah, we're trying to extradite him."
"Extradite?"
"The foreigner took off in the middle of all the commotion. Boarded a flight back home according to our investigation. We've contacted the airline, and the airport security in America will hold him when he lands. As he is currently my number one suspect."
I circled the area in front of the shrine. Noting the spilled bowl and its contents on the ground. The position of the spoon next to it. Before standing in the spot on the left side where the effigy would have stood. "What about the bride?"
The detective shook his head, "What bride?"
"It was a night wedding," I told him. "There must have been a physical object acting as a stand in for the daughter's soul."
"Nothing more than bags of cotton usually," he paused. "But they did report that the stand-in this time was some sort of department figurine. A mannequin of some sort."
"Have you looked into that?"
"Why would I look into that. Are you crazy?"
"Right, you're right of course. You'd have to wait until after sunset to be able to figure out which mannequin serves as the ghost bride's earthly form."
The detective stormed off as if I had said something outlandish. Leaving me to my own devices, I interviewed a few of the neighbors who had attend the night wedding, gathered some evidence and sorted with the other officers at the site, and then left for the nearest hotel in the city.
It had been a long month for me and I couldn't think of anything better than I would enjoy more than a cold beer. So after checking in I went down to the bar, where an ethereal creature sat alone. She was beautiful to say the least and I had to strike up a conversation lest I live a life of regret, "S'il te plaît ma chérie, dis-moi comment on t'appelle pour que quand je sois perdu dans les ténèbres. Puis-je demander la lumière."
"What?"
"Oh, American. I apologize. I thought you were French."
"On my mother's side," she brushed away her hair.
I noticed the ring, "Ah, you are married. My sincerest apologies miss."
"Newly married," she told me. "My husband speaking with the concierge."
"Activities on vacation," I mused. "How wonderful."
"It's nothing like that. It seems someone has left him a note. And we're technically on our honeymoon." She paused, "Though this isn't where we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be in Hawaii."
I ordered a beer with the bartender and sipped my drink, "Hawaii is wonderful, but this is also a beautiful island. In fact, when the Portuguese came here, they named it Formosa. Which translates to beautiful island. It may not be where you're supposed to be, but perhaps you'll find that this is exactly where you need to be."
The woman sighed, "I don't even know anymore."
"Ah, I know what this is. I've great experience in these matters. Having been married many times. You feel doubt."
She laughed, "How many times have you gotten a divorce?"
"Divorce?" I laughed. "I never leave a woman after we have been wed."
She looked taken aback, "Oh. I didn't know polygamy was so common in these parts." She glanced behind her to where a tall man was standing with what looked to be the hotel's concierge. "I guess we're in the same boat."
"It's not what you think," I told her.
"Where have I heard that one before," she rolled her eyes.
"Larissa!" The man called for her.
She stood up, "Well, it was nice meeting you. Tell your wives I said hello."
I smiled as she left, glancing at my sides. "If only you knew," I said while sipping my beer.
Now in hindsight, if I were not so fatigued after nearly a month of hard work and constant traveling. I would have perhaps picked up on the fact that she too was familiar with the concubine lifestyle. Which was unusual in itself for an American. Or perhaps I would have picked up on the fact that Larissa was an uncommon name. As I had read Jim's article. But there was no such luck, which is why, when I say that I am deeply regretful of what I read on the news later about the couple, I am truly at a loss for what I could have prevented. But that is not my story to tell.
After I finished drinking at the bar I made my way to the elevator and got in. When a man came towards me to hold the door, I called out, "It's full." He looked at me bewildered as I was the only person he could see in the elevator, before sticking his hand out to stop the doors from closing. Huffing and puffing as he glared at me angrily before pressing his floor number. Except the elevator pinged. The weight capacity light had turned on above our heads. "Like I said, it's full." The man shook his head in amazement. Pressing his floor number again. The elevator pinged again. Unwilling to budge. I sighed and got out, "I'll wait for the next one."
And wait I did, even in my room I waited for night fall instead of resting. The thoughts of a botched night wedding swirling in my head. For the many things that could go wrong. Because even though I had much practice in these matters, I was still always nervous before a fight. So when night fell, I was red eyed and exhausted, but better mentally prepared than before.
But when I arrived back at the scene of the crime, I was not prepared for all of the commotion.
"Ka-kin-eh Ka-kin-eh," a man shouted as the fire blazed.
I grabbed one of the men running by with an empty bucket, "What happened here?"
"T-the villagers, they set the p-place on fire. Trying to rid the evil demon."
I let him go and shook my head. The fools! I made my way toward the courtyard where I saw the detective from earlier moping his forehead as he was helping put out the fire. "Detective! This is terrible," I yelled as the flames licked the night.
"No shit dumbass, it's a fire."
"You don't understand," I told him. "Now the entity has nowhere to return. We may never find it."
He threw the bucket to the floor and whirled around, "Enough! I've had enough! Listen here, there is a fire. F-I-R-E. This a real problem. If it catches to the fields, it could light the newly laid fertilizer on fire and catch the entire mountain!"
"Detective!"
That was the only word I had to say before he punched me. It was a dark night out, but stars had suddenly appeared. He hovered over me and I thought he would strike me again but then suddenly he froze. "What is that?"
I turned my head and looked out into the field. The heat of the fire burning the back of my head as I tried to stop my nose from bleeding. "Where?"
Neither one of us moved as we watched the tall field.
"Right there." He pointed.
I reached up and threw his hand down, "No! You never point at entities," I told him. "Now you could be marked!"
He ignored me and reached for his gun, "Stop! Hey you! I order you to stop or I'll shoot!"
I looked into the field, scanning the endless rows before my eyes stopped and froze in horror. At one point in time the thing must have been a simple plastic mannequin. Standing in a department store perhaps. But now, it was twisted and gnarled. It's first dirty and unrecognizable. It stood on all fours sometimes threes as it swayed slowly back and forth. The thing was also without form because it didn't need to bend or move as normal people. It was still objectively, plastic. It swung its arms behind it and used that as leverage to run, turning its head - cracking the seams that had somehow still held and took off.
The detective rung a shot out at it. I think it struck but it didn't matter. Though the mannequin was gone. The detective must have lost his mind because he gave chase.
I couldn't let him go alone so I followed. Pulling out my long yellow parchment as I wrote on it the symbols for sealing, hoping the simple spell would work. As we entered the tall field.
It was chaos. The ground was mushy beneath my feet, and the smell of fecal matter assaulted my senses further. In the brush I had lost the detective, so I was forced to tell my wives to help me locate his whereabouts. They didn't often leave my side, and some were reluctant but ultimately agreed.
I stood in the field, waiting with bated breath as I heard further gunshots in the distance. I couldn't wait for my wives to gather as I tore after the detective. And just in time as I saw him standing, looking absolutely terrified as he shot blindly into the fauna until his pistol clicked. The mannequin lunged for him. But I got there first. Pushing him to the ground, causing both of us to tumble.
He was eating a mouth of dirt as I pulled him to his feet. "We have to get out of this field! The ghost bride will pick us off in this thicket!"
Stumbling, and running, the two of us were covered in more than dirt. Several times we heard rustling nearby as if something were running alongside us. But eventually we made it out into the open plain. The detective trying to catch his breath as he reloaded his pistol.
"Shooting it doesn't work," he panted. "But maybe I can disable it from moving."
"Shut up," I told him. "Listen."
He stopped for a moment and we waited. Then all of the stalks before us shook wildly as if a hundred people were running through it. The detective raised his arm but I stopped him as my wives ran out of the field.
They were terrified as they ran right through us.
I hadn't experienced the feeling in awhile but the coldness as their ghostly forms went through our bodies was cold as ice. It was enough to bring us both to our knees, clutching our chests as we struggled to breathe. I had passed through one or two in a row before. But never 10 or 20 at a time. I lost count.
"What was that," the detective managed to gasp, his fingers in a death grip around his gun.
"A blue procession," I told him. "Something caused all of my dead wives to flee."
We looked up as the leaves in front of us rustled.
"Is it..."
I shook my head, running forward to catch her. My 13th wife, Ah-ren. Her arm was missing, and a part of her shoulder. She was an innocent girl that had drowned when she was alive. Her innocence carried on with her to the afterlife where many souls generally grew up embittered. But never her, always sweet my girl, just weary of water.
"I didn't want to go," she told me.
"I know," I held her. "I'm sorry."
"It got some of the others too. But Meita got in its way and told me to run." She cried.
"Don't cry I told her. You know how you hate getting wet."
"I don't want to go. I wanted to stay with you. All of us together."
I watched as her soul splintered and disappeared forever.
I had never felt such fury. In all my years, a womanizer, a liar, a cheat at cards, a scoundrel, a bastard even. But an undutiful husband? Never.
Without thinking I approached the field and cast a spell that was been forbidden.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm purging the field. All beings alive or dead will forever feel displaced when they enter here. A feeling of unending dread and doom will overcome them, causing madness if they do not leave or are unable to. But I have no other choice." I reached into my side and threw a handful of salt. It landed on the ground as I chanted. The winds carrying it into the field, the small white morsels rolling obediently into the darkness.
"Nothings happening," the detective's word stuck in his mouth as a horrible scream echoed into the night. It sounded like two pieces of steel being twisted together.
"There," I took off after it. The jumbled figure of the mannequin fled toward the village.
We followed it through people's homes, and between alleyways; the villagers screamed and fled when they saw it. We barged through home after home as we chased it. Until we cornered it at an abandoned building at the edge of town.
"It was supposed to be a mall," the detective told me. "But the developers ran out of money."
We walked quietly into the empty building. Shells of stores stood in various degrees of construction. Checking a few of the fronts before venturing further inside.
"You've got to be kidding me," the detective said as we came near the center of the complex. There next to the escalators and the fountains was an army of mannequins of all shapes and sizes lined up like terracotta warriors. "They must have stashed them all here when the place was being built, and forgot about them when it closed."
"There are hundreds."
"We'll go through together. Quickly and quietly." He added, "Stay alert."
We moved through the rows, staring at all of the stuck faces, searching for one covered in grime and bullet holes. But it was more difficult than it sounded. Many of the mannequins were in bad shape, weathered, broken, laying in pieces on the ground. It was hard to tell if a pile of parts was indeed our culprit.
Slowly we began to clear the rows and I could see the other side in sight.
"There!" The detective shot his gun. The surrounding mannequins dropped like dominoes when the entity scattered. Falling down all around us, drowning in a sea of plastic arms and smiling faces. I was struggling to stand as I looked up and saw the entity come rushing toward us. The detective fired his gun blowing out a knee cap. I hurriedly reached for my parchment but could not find my pen. Another shot, but the scorned bride kept on charging unable to feel pain.
It jumped into the air and another shot blew a part of its face away. The detective screamed as it tore at him. Pieces of his sinew was launched into the air as he was torn apart. I rushed forward trying to help but the creature grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air. My feet searching for the ground as my lungs folded trying to breathe. The thing turned its head toward me and said, "Will you marry me?" As the darkness closed into the corners of my eyes.
The fight was leaving my body as I saw several of my wives rushing forward. Their ghostly forms ethereal as they began tearing at the mannequin, slowly pulling out pieces of her soul, causing the mannequins arms and legs to go limp as they dragged her out.
I scrambled the floor blindly with my fingers searching for my sacred parchment but could not find it amongst the rubble and the ghost bride was fleeing, leaving the shell of her mannequin in a heap on the floor. My wives chasing her, screaming their fury for killing the others. For destroying their souls.
I chased after them into the open air, where she was being cornered. Crying as I approached, trying to escape into the Southwest wind. I knew what I should have done, but could not bring myself to do the right thing. Instead I bit my finger and drew symbols on my forearms with my own blood. Approaching the bride that never was and tore her soul into pieces.
When I was done my wives sat down around me before slowly dispersing as the sun began to rise.
"We did it huh?"
I continued staring at the sun, "Yeah."
"Well then," the detective said before disappearing. "Maybe in the next life I'll be sooner to trust you."
Later they would find his body in the abandoned mall. Still clutching his gun. The department gave him a 21 gun salute at his funeral and a medal as commemoration. I was just glad that his soul had not been eaten.
I, on the other hand, went back to the hotel. To the bar and ordered a well deserved drink. Where I saw a pretty woman sitting alone, "Did you know that in order for me to pass on my Celestial title, I must bear an heir?"
​
​
s

So, to start off, I am a new mom. I have a 2 month old son who I am with 24/7. My boyfriend makes enough money so I get to be a SAH mom/girlfriend.
Ever since I became a mom, I decided to leave the partying, clubbing, drinking, hoe life behind so I can be a devoted mother and girlfriend. I have told all my friends this before and they usually take that into consideration when asking me to hang out.
However my best friends birthday is coming up this Saturday and she decided to celebrate by renting a pole dancing class in her city which is an hour away from mine. I will admit, two weeks ago I did tell her I would be there but as long as the class wasn’t more than 2 hours long and not too late so I could come back to my son before bedtime which she agreed to.
Now a week before her birthday she finally tells us the time slot she chose which was 4:45-7 and that she would come to my city after the class to go out to bars. Unfortunately, this did not work for me so I declined to come bcuz I did not want to drive back to my city late and my front bumper on my car is hanging on very loose.
This upset her and she said someone could just give me a ride down there and that if I don’t come the bill would fall on her so I offered to pay my portion of the class and I also told her I would leave early anyways as I didn’t want to be out too late from my son. But she keeps insisting her sister or our other best friend could drive me down there and back.
AITAH for cancelling on my best friends birthday plans to be with my son and avoid car problems?

So, to start off, I am a new mom. I have a 2 month old son who I am with 24/7. My boyfriend makes enough money so I get to be a SAH mom/girlfriend.
Ever since I became a mom, I decided to leave the partying, clubbing, drinking, hoe life behind so I can be a devoted mother and girlfriend. I have told all my friends this before and they usually take that into consideration when asking me to hang out.
However my best friends birthday is coming up this Saturday and she decided to celebrate by renting a pole dancing class in her city which is an hour away from mine. I will admit, two weeks ago I did tell her I would be there but as long as the class wasn’t more than 2 hours long and not too late so I could come back to my son before bedtime which she agreed to.
Now a week before her birthday she finally tells us the time slot she chose which was 4:45-7 and that she would come to my city after the class to go out to bars. Unfortunately, this did not work for me so I declined to come bcuz I did not want to drive back to my city late and my front bumper on my car is hanging on very loose.
This upset her and she said someone could just give me a ride down there and that if I don’t come the bill would fall on her so I offered to pay my portion of the class and I also told her I would leave early anyways as I didn’t want to be out too late from my son. But she keeps insisting her sister or our other best friend could drive me down there and back.
AITAH for cancelling on my best friends birthday plans to be with my son and avoid car problems?

Keep in mind, I suck when it comes to romance...
(Lack of experience)
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Memory Transcription Subject: Tarva, Governor of the Venlil Republic
Date [Standardized Human Time]: November 9, 2136
Over the two days that passed… humanity has sent, and is currently sending forth construction ships to each of our planets to begin construction on the new headquarters for their new institutions to begin conversion of the old federation endorsed guilds… From what Noah told us they only needed to allocate 9 shipyards to build all the necessary construction ships for us.
I was so intrigued about all of their shipyards. I wanted to know more about them, but Noah wouldn’t talk to me at all on the subject, saying Terran projects were to remain in Terran space. And nowhere else…
Noah wouldn’t actually talk to me at all. He had remained in the shuttle he arrived in for the few days he’s been here. I invited him to join me back at the governor's mansion, but he declined saying that his shuttle also functioned as his abode and office. It was apparently outfitted with all he could ever want and need…
That part made me feel concerned… did he not want… me?
His note said he loved me… I needed to understand exactly what he meant by that, but no matter when I tried to have a personal conversation with the human, he simply pushed me away saying he was reminded of business to do…
…
Surly he didn’t think that would work on me.
I was tired of trying to beat around the bush with this man. Like with Meier, I will speak, and he will listen.
It was a long day of work, needing to begin the process of the removal of the exterminator as a profession, as per the humans demands. I was ready to go home, but I was determined to set things straight between me and Noah…
I walked out to the landing pad up to the Shuttle and knocked firmly on its hatch and waited patiently for it to open. After a few moments, the hatch lowered for me to see Noah with a mug that read, “Galaxy’s Okayest Ambassador” ...
“Where did you get that mug?”, I just had to ask.
“Custom made; now what do you want?”
I sighed defeatedly, “Noah… I wanted to talk to you… about us.”
“Goodbye!”
Noah was about to press the button to close the hatch before I grabbed his arm to stop him. He looked at me both surprised and annoyed…
“Noah Williams! Stop trying to fight me on this! I saw your note you left in your drawer when you left!” I looked him dead in the eyes when I said that. His eyes widened in realization, he seemed to be surprised at the fact that I found the note. His face went red, which I was well aware meant that he was flustered by my comment.
He looked down to the side as he seemed to scowl at the fact, before turning to look at his arm with my paw holding onto it. He jerk his arm away from my paw, and looked at me with a
Face that seemed like he seemed to pain the thought of the conversation I wanted to have.
He turned around and gestured me over to a seat upon a couch that was built into the shuttle. I took my seat and gazed around the room of the shuttle. It was minimalistic and utilitarian with little decoration. There was once a photo hung up though, it was the first photo that Noah took with me… I was so scared then~... heh…
Noah closed the hatch back up and sat on the other end of the Couch with a tired face. He spoke up, “So… what did you want to talk about?”
Here goes nothing… “Noah… I feel the same way… I have feelings for you.”
Noah’s face went red as I said that…
“I… I’m glad to know that Tarva… but I don’t know If I can dedicate myself to a proper relationship… at least not publicly.”
EXCUSE ME?! I look at him with a face of pure shock, he shows a sense of fear as he sees the expression on my face.
“I-It’s not because im not interested anymore, it’s because of the situation regarding the aspect of xenophilia on earth… after the bombings, it’s become quite the… Controversy…”
Oh…
Yeah that made sense.
It’s not like interspecies relationships would be pursued by many humans with the amount of Xenophobia flowing about the human’s media. If Noah was revealed that he was in a relationship with me? The leader of the species that abandoned humanity at its darkest hour? Him being “recalled” was certain…
I responded in kind, “We don’t have to tell anyone Noah…” I took his hands and held them in my paws, “Even if it’s only behind closed doors until humanity cools down, I really want this with you…”
He looked up from his hands to peer directly into my eyes. With both of us looking into each other's eyes, into each other's souls, I saw the state of this man before me. He was broken in many ways, mentally mostly… he is stressed beyond belief. He deserves comfort all the same as Meier. And this time? It will be all the comfort I can provide him.
Noah sighs in acceptance of the situation. He smiles with a newfound compassion that wasn’t present before. This… this was the Noah that I met all those months ago… this was the one that I have grown to love.
We are suddenly woken from our trance from an alarming beeping from the shuttle’s cockpit. Noah’s expression turns to a cold worry as he seemed to know what that beeping meant. He got up from the couch and rushed into the cockpit, I followed suit to see the issue…
“N-Noah? W-What’s wrong?!” I asked with a stutter.
“Look… long range scanners just picked up an unidentified fleet moving out of hyperspace into the system’s outer circle…”
I took a look at the scanner that Noah was talking about…
…
KOLSHIANS…
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(LORE DUMP!)
:: The headquarters of the planetary police force of Venlil Prime, or PPFVP is built upon a large block in the capitol that was to be utilized for a stadium of sorts. The headquarters is to be operated by a UN official who is knowledgeable in officer duty and policies... That person being none other than [REDACTED] ::
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Last Friday was when everything became a shitshow. So that day, a friend of mine who was in town for a few days and I (both girls) decided that we will go get some drinks at a new bar that we thought is a bar, but when we got there, it’s more of a club than a bar. However, we decided to enjoy ourselves.
I’d say the first part of the night was going pretty smooth, we’re just drinking and having fun. A little while later, a table beside us became occupied by three men who is probably our fathers’ age, this is crucial information for the rest of this incident.
Fast Forward to like half an hour later, i was dancing in front of my table, one of the guys from the table beside us, let’s call him old guy one, smiled at me. As a person who nervous laughs and smiles, I just naturally smiled at him back, it was like an instinct. And he started offering me his beer, so i politely denied and turned my back on them, trying not to look in their direction anymore. I told my friend about that incident and she told me not to drink the beer because it might be roofied.
So then we were dancing on the dance floor, my friend is now with a guy in the back. I was in front, dancing with a girl. But as it was a small dancing floor, there were people beside me and i can still see my friend. The people beside me were guys who are friends with the guy that my friend was with. So, I noticed that one of those guys who was initially dancing with another girl, gradually became closer to me. I didn’t really mind and kept dancing with the girl that i was dancing with. After a while, the girl i was with got separated from me for some reason. So there i was alone and still dancing, that’s when the guy that got closer became closer and then, grabbed my waist. Although i was like woah, i didn’t aggressively get out of his hands, instead i subtly tried to get away. I tried to go back to the girl since i saw her again but the guy didn’t really let me and faced me to him. This is where i have to explain myself to you guys because i have lack of boundaries issue, and i don’t know how to say no, that’s my fault. Plus, i was really detached that night, i tend to zone out and dissociate as a way of coping and with alcohol, my feelings were disconnected from me. I didn’t feel anything, anything at all, it’s as if i’m just watching from the third person view, as if i cannot intervene what was happening, as if it was not happening to me. Now that i’m in my normal state, i know how ridiculous it sounds but i promise i’m not just making up excuses. So I kept dancing, no thoughts in my head, and then suddenly, he pushed my hair out of the way and kissed my neck. For a second there, i remember thinking this shouldn’t be happening because i have someone that i’m currently talking to. So, i stopped dancing and went back to my table alone.
That’s when it gets worse, Old guy one and his friends were there at their table and once they saw me, they started talking to me. They asked where i’m from and i lied and said i’m from somewhere else, and they asked “jokingly” if they could get back to my hotel with me. I don’t even know why i replied to them in the first place, to be honest. I was just really uncomfortable and in shock, this was my first time being talked to like that.
At that point, i couldn’t sit there anymore so i just chose to go back to the dancing floor where my friend is, although i know there is a possibility the dancing guy would return to me. As expected he does, while i was trying to talk to my friend. Honestly, i don’t know why i didn’t deny him at that moment because i had no thought processes in my head. Anyone that was seeing me probably just thought i was okay, hell, even i thought i was okay. but a really okay me wouldn’t be acting like that.
Fast forward and now we’re leaving the club, i am still not feeling anything, but i texted my guy that i was talking to immediately that i danced with somebody else and that i’m sorry. He knew i was at the club, i was even sending him videos of me during the first part of the night but then my phone died so i was charging it at the reception. I was tired and drunk so the guilt hasn’t really set in but i knew i had to tell him. So i told him and i went to sleep and when i woke up, that’s when the guilt kicks in and everything starts processing in my head.
What i did was really out of my character and even i don’t know why i did that and why it happened the way it did. it was a mistake, a very bad one but it could’ve been avoided if i was just more mentally present. the guilt is haunting me and eating me up inside. also, me not knowing what exactly happened to me and why i reacted the way i did scares me a lot. I am considering counseling and the more i think about it, the more traumatizing it becomes. It’s like the situation has happened but the feelings are just following up now. I know it’s my fault and i deserve the guilt but still, it’s too heavy at times.

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DO NOT EAT HERE. DO NOT WORK HERE. LOOK AT THE 1-STAR REVIEWS ON GOOGLE REVIEWS ON THIS RESTAURANT. IT EXPLAINS MORE ON WHY.
There is sexual and inappropriate conduct that goes on publicly at the restaurant and in the kitchen as well as adultery/cheating/dishonesty. BE WARY.
HERE ARE SOME LISTED HERE:

1. This restaurant ILLEGALLY takes 5% of food sales and 10% of bar sales out of server tips. That means that servers could lose over 30% of their tips due to owner greed. Please do not support this atrocious business with such greedy and inhumane owners.
2. Poor management
3. They were very unorganized I waited two hours for me and 3 other to sit down they were very rude to employees and the service was very good but employees got fire for no reason at all food was not worth the wait. The training was sitting on the table were customer eat on, think a second time before you go here
4. Managers are rude. Terrible management. Illegal hiring and firing. Don't work here. DO NOT WORK HERE. The atmosphere is extremely toxic and inappropriate. Do not eat or work here please do not if you want some peace of mind. This is the nastiest place you could ever eat or work at. My apologies go out to all of the employees who got mass fired.
5. This place is insane. I've been here a good amount of times and have noticed some things over time. It is insanely chaotic and unprofessional. This time, one of the Latina managers was getting her lower behind slapped by another male manager, then she went to go and touch and flirt with the Chinese male boss. I've noticed that none of the servers get breaks and asked around about this place and found out that none of the servers get breaks. They get no meals or get a moment to sit down. The management and managers here are terrible and rude people, and I feel so sorry for the new and young employees. I've also noticed many of the regular employees were missing. I saw someone get fired in front of my eyes without a real and legal reason. If you're looking for a job DO NOT WORK HERE. All of you managers need some therapy. Get help. Stop preying on young workers and luring them into your unsafe and toxic. Y'all are disgusting and do not deserve to run a business. If y'all got kids don't even bring them. There is so much indecency publicly happening here. Get out.
6. Terrible Management
7. Not a quality place (food wise or management wise)
8. When I go out in public spaces, I like to observe environments, especially restaurant workers, to see their behaviors and such (to see if they're enjoying their job, if it's healthy, etc.). I noticed a few things here: first, there is a lot of public harassment and inappropriate conduct. I know Asian fetishization when I see it, which is clearly visible here. I saw a bartender get fired for no reason besides not being able to work a specific schedule that they apparently require each of their workers to work, not accommodating to their other jobs or commitments outside of work. I do not recommend any interested workers in applying here based on the unreasonable mass firing I witnessed. The atmosphere here is without any doubt toxic, hostile, unkind, rude, miserable, and vicious, especially towards its new employees or those who are not on the toxic snake train. Please be wary, and do not bring children here. But to be frank, I highly recommend not coming here to waste your money on a group of greedy, selfish, and malicious individuals. Managers and bosses from this repulsive and despicable Korean BBQ restaurant, I hope you all learn something from this and find some peace in your life and treat people better.
9. Stay away. Not worth ur time
10. Service was lacking. But I want to point out the Food. Foods we had were subpar in quality. I loved Korean BBQ and I would love to eat a high quality meat. Eat all you can sounds great but expect LESS quality meal and also do not expect high quality banchans. Seoul Garden is still the best Korean BBQ in the area and no one ever comes close to its quality of food and service. Would not recommend this place.

The franchise owners here are inhumane and disgusting. They need to be stopped. Please share around or leave bad reviews so others are aware of their toxic and atrocious actions and behavior. Even just liking the bad reviews would be great. Thank you!
I pray karma does its magic.

I don't really know if I want advice or just a place to vent but whatever. I'm feeling really shitty right now and need to get all of it off my chest and hope I am not being crazy or awful. For background, everyone involved including myself are 25F. Ariel and I became roommates in college and lived together for a year, and then later Belle moved in to take the place of one of out other roommates. We became friends when Belle moved in to our apartment but we really became a trio a few months later. We have a shared group chat we all talk in pretty much daily and do regular facetime calls since none of us live near each other. Ariel and Belle are closer than I am to Belle but I am pretty close with Ariel. I talk to both of them on a daily basis in our group chat, but talk to Ariel more outside of the group chat. Ariel and Belle have both separately visited me (I live in a different state), with Belle visiting me in Fall 2022 (this is kinda relevant). The three of us also went on a girls trip about a year ago. A little more than a year ago, Belle got engaged to her long term boyfriend and it was very exciting. From early on there were discussions about bachelorette and general wedding details. Bridal party stuff was never mentioned, Belle always seemed pretty lowkey about adhering to wedding traditions so I didn't think much of it. I also didn't want to ask since I wasn't sure what she was doing, but I assumed if she was doing that I would be one. In retrospect, I admit this wasn't a fair assumption. It was either December or January, a good 6+ months from the engagement, when groomsmen were brought up for the first time and I privately asked Ariel about it. She told me that Belle asked her a while ago to be a bridesmaid. I felt really caught off guard; I'm not a Karen, it is totally up to Belle who she chooses for her wedding party. I also found out it was pretty small too (4 bridesmaids and 4 groomsmen), and I was also in a wedding in November and recently asked to be in another one, while Ariel has never been in a wedding. Ariel is also quite frankly a better bridesmaid than I would be: she follows wedding stuff, is super organized, and is local and able to go to more pre-wedding events. I also know Ariel and Belle are closer so I am not surprised she asked Ariel. I just felt kinda shitty, like this was being kept from me on purpose, especially since Belle came to visit me for a weekend and we talked wedding stuff and there would've been time to mention this to me, but whatever I too hate confrontation and awkward situations which is why I am here. I def was a bit insecure about it and vented a bit to Ariel when she told me, but after that I let it be. Belle made a choice, I can't even fault her for it. I have my own insecurities and that's on me to deal with. She did have a bachelorette and I was invited. It was fun. There were a couple other girls there who weren't part of the bridal party which helped, except I knew one of them was a pity invite which def got to my insecurities of being like that too. I wasn't able to make it to the bridal shower because it was too far away. Meanwhile, friendships are fine, no drama there. Since I am not local, I stayed with Ariel and rode with her to the wedding. I felt awkward with her talking about bridesmaid stuff but whatever. She had to get there the day before for the rehearsal and everything. I felt a bit awkward about being with Ariel but not invited to the rehearsal especially since some people invite out-of-state guests to that, but another friend of ours (Snow) stayed with us at the hotel so we hung out. Snow and I hung out before and during the wedding when Ariel was doing bridesmaid stuff. Here is the thing tho, Snow is a college friend but not a close one. Ariel and Belle know Snow better than me, and aren't the biggest fans of her but she was invited anyway. Our other old roommate, who again none of us are particularly close to, was invited as well and the three of us (me, Snow, and 4th roommate) hung out during the wedding. I hate to say it, but that made me feel even shittier like I was cast aside to hang out with the rejects. During the wedding, one of the groomsmen was kinda cute. I thought he was flirting with me and was into that, but he was flirting with Ariel and they ended up making out a bunch. I let me insecurities get the best of me and took advantage of the open bar, got drunk, cried a bit in the bathroom because I was feeling so shitty, and then made out with a random person (I am not proud of any of this). I don't think my jealousy was detected and it all worked out. I did hate Ariel a bit when we were driving back as she was talking about how she, and I quote, "didn't realize she was one of Belle's top four friends and thought she was fifth or sixth" which made me feel like garbage. She talked a lot about wedding stuff and the grooms family and I was soaking in hungover jealousy. Now the wedding was weeks ago so aside from hearing about it when the professional photos come out (which honestly I am dreading a bit), I thought I was in the clear and my jealousy would be better. However, Ariel and the groomsmen hit it off, went out, and are currently on a date doing the deed. Now, I am not delusional, I don't know this guy at all, am not mad or jealous of her being with him or whatever. It's just...I haven't had sex and until tonight Ariel was my only friend in the same boat. I am happy for her but its hard being a virgin at my age and feeling like shit about it. Having someone close to me who understood was nice and made me feel less alone, and now that is gone. And now it just feels like her and belle are going to go off and be BFFs who have sex and I will be the virgin loser with no friends. Plus, she met the guy because of Belle and that's always gonna be a part of it, which makes me feel like I'm being shut out of this friendship. All this jealousy and insecurities are building up and I don't know what to do. I don't want to say anything because I feel like saying something will push them, especially Ariel (I am about to move to her city and was looking forward to hanging out with her more) away but I am worried about keeping all these feelings in. And I hate having these feelings in the first place, because so much isn't valid and it's stupid and illogical and I hate them so much. It just feels like I will never grow past the insecure 12 year old who didn't have friends and was left out and I know thats not true (at least I pray to god it's not) but I don't know how to handle it. I hate to say this about a friend's wedding, but it feels like it's gonna haunt me forever and I hate how stupid that sounds. I just wish I didn't have these feelings.

So I was attempting to take pictures of some heat lightning tonight and I know I snapped the photo at the right time but it seems after the phone processed the picture it corrected away the actual heat lightning and left a blank sky is there any way to stop it from doing that or see the picture before it was processed?

I am not the Original Poster. That is u/Particular_Figure123. She posted in TrueOffMyChest and her own page. Thank you to u/queenlegolas for finding this and sending it my way!
Yes this is a different BORU than a similarly titled one from 2019 here.
Trigger Warning: infidelity (duh)
Mood Spoiler: honestly the best ending you could hope for in this situation
Original Post: June 17, 2022
The ultimate cliche has happened in my life, and i’m absolutely broken. My husband, my rock, has been having an affair for over 17 years. We have been married for over 25 years. We have 3 beautiful children, two in college and one who still lives at home. But turns out, he’s had another set this whole time.
My husband is an insurance broker, he has multiple branches over the country which he spends week on, week off. turns out on his week off, he’s been with his other family in Albuquerque, where his other branch is. He’s got a fiancé, whom he has 2 kids with, both in their early teens. I found out when I went to make a new facebook account, and when i searched my husbands first name, another profile, with another last name popped up, and through that profile were the links to his fiancé’s and his other kids facebooks.
My husband is currently with said family, and i know it’s him because his most recent post is a photo of him and that other family eating dinner. Among those photos were photos of him kissing the girl, and him being fatherly with kids who look nearly identical to my husband.
I am absolutely broken. Almost every part of me wants to scream in his face, and reprimand him for ruining my life. But another part of me wants to pretend to be ignorant and let it be. Because our life is peaceful, he’s good with our kids, hes the main source of financial income, he’s loving, but he’s also all those things to another family. Not only would i be tearing a gaping hole into my family, i’d be opening up a vortex for them too.
My heart is in shambles, i’ve never cried so much in my life, my youngest son is currently on a graduation trip with friends, and i’m alone till my lying, cheating, bastard husband comes home. My life is absolutely wrecked. It’s literally a movie plot, i’m hoping he’ll just come home and it’ll be a big misunderstanding why he’s kissing a woman with a ring on her finger.
I don’t know what to do anymore, i’m tempted to pack a bag and just leave. I can’t be in the home where we’ve raised our kids, where we’ve spent every christmas for the last 26 years and where i’ve been alone on new years taking care of our babies, while he “works his ass off”. I just can’t. I want to leave a note for him to come home too, hurt him like he’s hurt me, but i don’t think that’s possible.
I dont know how i’ll ever face him again.
Update (Same Post): June 21, 2022 (4 days later)
This is a follow up: Firstly, thank you so much for the advice. I’m not in any means good with legal things, so all legal advice has been noted. I’ve rung an attorney, we are discussing the process, he’s also told me to gather as much evidence as i could; such as photos of the facebook pages, text messages, and resent flight information. All has been put into a folder and i’ll present it to a judge or jury when we go into some sort of divorce proceeding. Again not fully clear with specifics, but it’s a good sign.
I’ve also been in contact with the other woman. I’ve told her, explained the situation, and she was equally as distraught. From what i’m aware she’s financially independent from him and they don’t share property, so it seems very clean cut on her behalf. My husband is aware of the fact I know, and is currently staying in a hotel, but he is unaware the other woman knows. I confronted him when he walked through the door. He started to cry, and plead, and it was honestly kind of pathetic. I mean, i was crying too, but i’ve chosen to think of him as a pathetic coward for doing this. Because he is.
But anyways, I have my name on the property - we both do - so it’s not like I can just kick him out, but he’s chosen to stay away for “my sake”. All i am thinking is ‘if he chose to stay away for “my sake” maybe being faithful for “my sake” should of been considered too.’. Despite this, he’s staying away. He’s in a hotel down town where he calls every few hours to “check up”. Im no longer sad. Well, i am. But i’m way more furious than sad currently. My kids still have no idea, and my youngest thinks my husband is just working more in Albuquerque because of a business problem. Im still confused at how to tell them they have 2 half siblings, and two parents, one with an extra back up parent. I’m just feeling very, very unappreciated and unwanted lately, but your kind words have been so helpful. Thank you guys so much.Much love.
Update Post: January 13, 2023 (6 months later)
This is in reference to my post titled “My husband has a second family”.
Firstly, I would like to start of by thanking everyone who had positive things to say. The wide spread support has been so helpful during this period and I am truly amazed at the kindness shown to me. Thank you.
And now the update, I won’t be going into details about the divorce because it is still ongoing, but do rest assured it is happening. A few people seemed worried I was going to stay with him, and for a period of time I would have, but no, we are divorcing. On that note I have completely cut contact with him, our contact is through lawyers only. He officially moved out of the house, and my middle moved back in to help out over the break.
My kids have, to my knowledge, cut most contact with him, but I haven’t asked as it is not my place. Also custody isn’t a problem because my youngest turned 18 recently.
We have also been in contact with the other family and we even spent christmas together. Despite being a little awkward at first me and his ex fiancé are trying our hardest to bring the kids together harmoniously.
And that’ll be the last update, i’m logging off of reddit now. I will continue living my life, i’ll try to support my kids through theirs, but I’ll forever be thankful for the support and love you all have shown.
Yours truly and sincerely, OP
I sincerely hope OOP, her kids and the other family are living their best lives.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

Some of you might have seen me make posts in the past in regards to Light's matchups against Walt, Columbo, Lelouch, etc. I need to make an apology in regards to those since there was a crucial plot detail that I remembered wrong, as it relates to the topic of hunting down Kira. Thank you to u/HowdyAshleyHere for pointing this out to me.
Because it's been a long time since I read/watched the series in full, I mistakenly believed that Near and Mello were given a huge headstart thanks to a cache of information transmitted to Wammy's House by L. It's still not wrong to say that they owe their success in the finale to his work, as their investigation was really just an extension of his. And he'd done the lion's share of the work needed to identify Kira. However, I'd forgotten that Light deleted the cache of information. And the transmission that Wammy's House received was merely a message informing them of L's death.
How Near and Mello actually obtained the information about the notebook and L's investigation was Near working with the FBI and CIA for several years worth of research. Until eventually they somehow managed to stumble upon a key witness. A Japanese police officer who was not part of the Kira Task Force, but was involved in the arrest of Kyosuke Higuchi, the Yotsuba Kira. This unknown officer was close enough that he overheard Higuchi's confession that he uses a notebook to kill people. And the officer saw that notebook being delivered to L's helicopter. Mello would learn of these details through a spy he had in Near's SPK called Ill Ratt (yes, that's really his name). With that information, Mello would begin a kidnapping plot that led to his mafia outfit briefly possessing one of the notebooks and learning of its rules. And in order to get that notebook back, Light was forced to turn over everything the Kira Task Force knew about the notebook's rules to the SPK in exchange for their assistance.
​
Now...how does this impact his matchups? Well it does make things slightly easier for his opponents. But I wouldn't say it guarantees a win for them.
To start with now that I fully remember this plot point, it occurs to me that this detail was always something of an ass pull on the part of the Death Note writers that stretches belief a bit. Who this unknown Japanese cop was and how the SPK learned of the notebook from him has never been explained. It's not like he'd just go posting that shit on his social media account. And the SPK being an outside organization shouldn't have been privy to the NPA's biggest secrets. If they'd attempted to go around asking cops involved with Higuchi's arrest, that would have alerted Light and the Task Force that someone was snooping around.
The best explanation that I've been able to think of to explain this away is that perhaps the FBI sent an agent to the NPA under the pretense of an overseas officer exchange. And that agent quietly looked into things by befriending detectives and officers that were outside of L's Task Force, but had some minor involvement in the investigation. Such as detectives who quit the case when Light wiped out the team of 12 FBI agents who snuck into Japan. Until eventually getting lucky and stumbling upon the one cop who was close enough to Higuchi to overhear him. Maybe getting the details by inviting that cop for a drink at a bar or something. It's not perfect, but that's as close as I can think of to a plausible explanation as to how Near could have gotten that information.
​
So as for some of Light's popular opponents...
​
Walt - This shouldn't actually make things much easier for him. Because he has next to no allies in law enforcement (besides a friendly relationship with Hank and the DEA), it would be very unrealistic for him to get this information from the NPA. His best bet for doing so would be to somehow gain allies with the few remaining organized crime groups in Japan (likely with the help of Mike, Lydia, and Saul). And hope that they could get a man on the inside through bribes or intimidation. Still wouldn't guarantee much, and getting to this stage would require a lot of work cleaning things up on the homefront (eliminating loose ends Kira could exploit in New Mexico, getting an alibi for Walt being out of town, etc.).
​
Columbo - Makes things slightly easier and it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that he could learn of the notebook's existence. But there's a fatal flaw with Columbo. His investigation method of doing old-fashioned grunt work on his own is inherently ill-suited to the Kira investigation. ESPECIALLY in the post-timeskip setting where things had reached a point where Light could simply arrange for his enemies to be gunned down by proxies. Pretty much all major parties involved by that point were operating more like spies than detectives. And so a famous American detective (who doesn't even speak the local language) going around trying to ingratiate himself with the NPA and learn about Higuchi's arrest would set off alarm bells far more than it would with the SPK. Yes, I suppose we could assume that Columbo somehow obtained backing from allies and gained agents to do such things for him. But by that point you're not really using Columbo any more, but just a fanon version that resembles Near more than it does the real character.
​
Lelouch - Makes things a lot easier, but he already has loads of advantages to begin with. I've said before that of all his opponents, Lelouch is by far the most well-suited to taking out Kira. Since on top of his genius intellect, vast resources, and top tier identity security, the Geass as OP as fuck in relation to Death Note. He could literally walk right into the NPA, get everything they know about the investigation, and walk out without leaving any memories or camera footage showing his presence there that day. Having a cop there who overheard the crucial detail about a magic notebook is just icing on the cake.
​
Though one last important detail to keep in mind about this unknown cop is that finding him does not ensure that a potential Kira hunter will know exactly how the notebook works. All they'll be able to figure out is that Kira writes people's names down to kill them while thinking of their face. They're not going to know all the other special rules. Mello only learned of those by getting a notebook for himself. And Near was given them as a result of Mello's interference. How that potential hunter goes about trying to learn those extra rules is up to them.

I used to have a tree in my backyard to hang my rings on, and do all sorts of advanced moves with the Olympic rings. I now live in an apartment and the closest tree is at least a 15 minute walk away.
Right now I have a pull up bar hanging off my door frame and I have hung my rings on the pull up bar. So far it seems strong enough to hold my weight but as you can imagine there’s far less space to maneuver around. What exercises can I do hanging off the pull up bar?
I can’t imagine I can skin the cat without kicking the bar off the door frame and eating shit.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.

In northwestern Greece near the village of Zotiko, outdoor enthusiasts were fishing the banks of the Acheron. Their line became tangled in debris on the murky river bottom and wouldn’t come free. After tugging a bit more insistently, a large piece of wormwood was dragged to the surface. Upon closer inspection, it became clear the handcrafted wooden plank was very old and part of a sunken watercraft. Since Greece has a long history of civilization dating back over four millennia, the fishermen excitedly hoped the lost vessel held valuable artifacts or treasures.
Imagining the potential wealth a lost shipwreck could bring, they tried to handle the complicated salvage operation by themselves. They quickly realized it was too extensive of a task to complete without professional expertise. Not to mention, the severe legal penalties they stood to receive from the Greek antiquities board for not reporting such a find to the authorities. They are understandably protective of domestic historical sites.
The men sought legal advice on their rights to potential financial gain from the shipwreck they’d stumbled upon. Since it was discovered in a Greek waterway and not in international waters, they came up with a big old ‘goose egg’. Any proceeds or treasure uncovered at the site would go directly to the Greek government. They’d be lucky to even receive a finder’s plaque on the museum wall.
Meanwhile, the authorities were quick to assemble a full team to excavate whatever remained of the ancient ship. Initial soundings by divers revealed a ten meter long ferry-style barge immersed deep in the swampy river mud, with only the uppermost portion of it expose. Curiously, there were numerous large stones and boulders piled on top of the deck. As luck would have it, the poorly-placed rocks protected the ancient ship, masking it from wear and the elements. Radio carbon dating placed the construction to around 2240 BCE.
While rocks surreptitiously served to preserve major portions of the wreck, their reason for being piled on the deck was baffling. Any competent ferryman or barge captain would realize their weight at the top of the boat would sink it immediately, and yet they were obviously placed there to do so. The mystery widened. After suctioning out tons of river silt and removing the giant stones which sank it in the first place, the divers bore underneath the ferry and ran inflatable hoses through the holes.
Once a climate-controlled structure was fabricated to protect it from the sudden shock of being exposed again to the air for the first time in forty centuries, they began the arduous task of lifting the brittle wreckage from the bottom. The excavation foreman was excited to see that not only was the ancient vessel surfacing in one piece, but a massive cache of silver coins spilled out the side of the hull as it was raised from the water. The mysterious captain of the ferry had been rich, apparently.
The coins were sent to the University of Athens where they were identified as ‘Obols’. Literally ‘Ferry coins’; according to the associate professor who researched them. It made sense. The ferryman apparently stored his riches down below and had so many he used them as ship ballast! If so, there was an immense folly in his financial success. Greed apparently led to the unknown shipwreck on the Acheron river bed.
The team watched in breathless fascination as the ancient relic was finally dredged from the murky river. Countless layers of mud and debris were carefully removed from the waterlogged carcass. What lay underneath was eerily hypnotic. Its imposing structure was immediately overshadowed by the horrific stench of a slaughterhouse emanating from the bloated wormwood. The majestic ferry boat retrieved from the Acheron river held a sinister aura for all who beheld it. At the time, none of them could articulate why but the truth came soon enough.
At that moment, an unexpected storm struck the valley. It temporarily broke the bewitching spell over the hapless onlookers ensnared by its unexplained power. Mother Nature’s wrath caused the excavation workers to make a ‘mad dash’ for safety. The wreckage hovered just above the surface of the river on its crane riggings, like a phantom vessel stalking its prey.
——————
Other than minor surface rot around the top of the decking and cabin area, the rugged vessel was in remarkable visible condition. The authorities viewing the photos remotely via a web link could hardly believe their luck. They were thrilled about being able to offer the oldest known sailing ship raised from water. While nowhere as ornate or impressive as the Vasa flagship of Stockholm harbor, it was infinitely older. It also predated the Viking longboat in Oslo by at least three millennia; and was even older than the reconstructed Spartan warship raised from the Aegean Sea.
Condition-wise, it was even more impressive than King Tut’s afterlife sailboat. That ancient watercraft was buried in the tomb with the boy king. It had been shielded from the elements and time. This was the real deal. It was unquestionably more impressive as a tourist attraction. Well, except for the hideous, uncomfortable grip it held over all those who gazed upon it in person; AND the unbearable stench which made your eyes water and your knees buckle. It was mankind’s end personified in the wretched form of a wormwood ferry barge.
Both ‘tiny little drawbacks’ warranted avoiding the ungodly relic at all costs. Unfortunately the curator couldn’t grasp the magnitude of its horror from his monitor, 200 kilometers away. The excavation foreman desperately tried to explain the reality of the situation but it was one of those visceral things you just had to witness for yourself. All but a couple members of the crew quit out of fear or lingering illness. It was like being exposed to a deadly plague and they wanted no part of it. They abandoned the malodorous site in droves. Then, after experiencing the menacing hold it placed on those who came near it, no replacements could be found to take their place, either.
In growing frustration, the museum chairman telephoned the university antiquities department looking for volunteers. There he hoped to locate some history students willing to participate in preparing the discovery for final transport to the museum as an exhibition centerpiece. The head of the department answered the call. The learned professor listened to the curator’s tale of frustration and woe before excitedly interrupting.
“Where exactly did you find this sunken shipwreck? It wasn’t the Acheron river valley, was it? My associate Professor showed me the silver Obols your team extracted from it. He was only partially accurate in what he told you about them. Those silver coins weren’t used for ordinary passage on a regular ferry boat. They held great symbolic importance to our ancestors in their funerary traditions. Obols were meant to be presented to underworld ferryman Charon; which is actually a corruption of the word for ‘carrion’. The dead were buried with them over the eyes or in the mouth. It was the currency of HIS realm, and the price he required to transport the restless souls down the Styx to the land of the dead. Later, that river system was renamed: Acheron.”
—————-
Another fierce tempest rolled into the valley. It pelted the swinging relic with torrents of blood rain and typhoon-level gales. Darkness and evil reigned supreme. Brooding terror lingered like an endless burial procession, and made the previous thunderstorm seem like a gentle afternoon sprinkle, in comparison. The sinister corpse-man of Charon materialized on the deck of his ferry, as he surveyed the transforming apocalypse. His skeletal face bore no hint of emotion. Only his flaming eye-sockets betrayed the eternal rage within his blackened heart.
“Coin!”; he screeched with a rotten tongue to the excavation foreman. Though his Greek was an ancient dialect, the meaning was clear enough. The foreman and other mortified souls nearby cowered at his unholy presence. The void in the ship’s hull began to heal itself but the ferryman’s considerably amassed wages were lost. There was rowing to do, and passengers to transport to Hades.
In a moment of clarity, the foreman finally understood the reason the heavy rocks were placed on the deck of the ferry. It was to stop Charon. As if sinking his barge to the underworld would prevent death itself. It certainly hadn’t. Perhaps that explained the strife and civil discontent prevalent worldwide. The dead were no longer able to be transported to their final destination because of a misguided attempt to end death itself.
The natural order of things was lost. The dead could find no peace or rest. The accumulated wrath of countless departed souls wandering the Earth had leached into the world for the last four thousand years. They were lost and furious. It created a bottleneck of spiritual darkness which needed to be righted to rebalance the system. The lost souls needed their ferryman, and the living needed them to finally have closure. To live is to eventually die. It was the only way.
The hole in the hull of Charon’s ferry was almost gone. The foreman knew what had to be done, for the benefit of mankind. He went over to the master switch on the crane and lowered the festering wreckage back down to the water’s surface. A vortex appeared in the middle of the devastating storm clouds, leading off into the horizon. An endless line of impatient travelers appeared beside the Acheron’s bank to book their long-delayed passage.
They had an essential journey ahead to the promised land, and were weary from the delay. The foreman himself was grateful his own time to travel to Hades hadn’t yet arrived. With the dead finally receiving their justice due, he hoped the Earth would soon see the end of wickedness and war. When he himself was finally called down to the great below, the foreman would present the ferryman with his shiny Obol. It was Charon’s price for services to be rendered.