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Blood in the Arena: The Gladiators/Fighting Pits of ASOIAF (Spoilers Extended)

In this post, I would like to discuss the different pit fighters, pits and beasts that have fought in the different fighting pits of the series. The savagery of these games is reflected in the real world in places like the Coliseum and similar arenas is not only shown in numerous movies/shows, but also had a devastating effect on local wildlife (European Lion, Atlas Bear).
All men share a taste for blood, a taste the pits help slake. - ADWD, Daenerys I

Fighting Pits, Pit Fighters, etc. in the series.

They wear no armor in the fighting pits. It's blood the crowds come to see." -ASOS, Daenerys V

Fighting Pits

Astaphor
Astaphor's pits seem to match the rest of the city:
All the streets were made of the same red brick that had paved the plaza. So too were the stepped pyramids, the deep-dug fighting pits with their rings of descending seats, -ASOS, Daenerys II
A bull is strong as well, but bulls die every day in the fighting pits. A girl of nine killed one not three days past in Jothiel's Pit.
Meereen
Meereen had a score of lesser pyramids, but none stood even half as tall. From here she could see the whole city: the narrow twisty alleys and wide brick streets, the temples and granaries, hovels and palaces, brothels and baths, gardens and fountains, the great red circles of the fighting pits. -ASOS, Daenerys V
Daznak's Pit has rows of multicolored benches and at one point Dany had 163 of the Great Masters impaled in spikes there.
All of which are owned by Hizdahr zo Loraq:
When Dany had closed the city's fighting pits, the value of pit shares had plummeted. Hizdahr zo Loraq had grabbed them up with both hands, and now owned most of the fighting pits in Meereen. -ADWD, Daenerys I
The Purple Lotus (seedy winesink in Mereen) is also known to have pit fighting:
At this hour the house was less than half full. A few of the patrons favored the Dornishmen with looks bored or hostile or curious. The rest were crowded around the pit at the far end of the room, where a pair of naked men were slashing at each other with knives whilst the watchers cheered them on. -ADWD, The Spurned Suitor
I am sure Yunkai has some too, but we never view inside the city. There are also "gaming pits" in other locations too, such as:
Qarth:
She dismounted beside a gaming pit where a basilisk was tearing a big red dog to pieces amidst a shouting ring of sailors. "Aggo, Jhogo, you will guard the horses while Ser Jorah and I speak to the captains." -ACOK, Daenerys V
Flea Bottom (King's Landing)
Rorge owned a pot shop or bar in Flea Bottom, the really bad part of King's Landing. Rorge would stage rat fights, and dog fights, bear cub fights, etc., and make money of these fights. At some point he found young Biter, a big ugly kid with no parents or something like that, and took him in. Rorge starting putting Biter into the fights, fighting mastiffs and bear cubs, etc. -SSM, Canadian Signing Tour (Vancouver): 13 January 2006

Pit Fighters

They took some wrong turnings, but once they found the surface Strong Belwas led them to the nearest fighting pit, where they surprised a few guards and struck the chains off the slaves. Within an hour, half the fighting slaves in Meereen had risen. -ASOS, Daenerys VI
Sandoq the Shadow
Probably one of my favorite historic characters. 7 feet tall and likely a summer islander. No lips/tongue with white scars across his face. Probably the most deadly character ever with his valyrian steel arakh.
It was said that he had been the victor of a hundred fights in the death pits of Meereen, that he had once torn out the throat of a foe with his teeth after his sword had shattered, that he drank the blood of the men he killed, that in the pits he had slain lions, bears, wolves and wyverns with no weapons but the stones he found upon the sands.
If you are interested: Everything we know about Sandoq the Shadow
Strong Belwas
Before Strong Belwas was in service to Illyrio, he was a pit fighter in Meereen:
The huge brown eunuch swaggered forward, sheathing his arakh. "I am Belwas. Strong Belwas they name me in the fighting pits of Meereen. Never did I lose." He slapped his belly, covered with scars. "I let each man cut me once, before I kill him. Count the cuts and you will know how many Strong Belwas has slain."
Dany had no need to count his scars; there were many, she could see at a glance. "And why are you here, Strong Belwas?" -ACOK, Daenerys V
A group of 7 pit fighters accompany Hizdahr when he approaches Dany about reopening the fighting pits:
"Your Radiance has seven gods, so perhaps she will look upon my seventh plea with favor. Today I do not come alone. Will you hear my friends? There are seven of them as well." He brought them forth one by one. "Here is Khrazz. Here Barsena Blackhair, ever valiant. Here Camarron of the Count and Goghor the Giant. This is the Spotted Cat, this Fearless Ithoke. Last, Belaquo Bonebreaker. They have come to add their voices to mine own, and ask Your Grace to let our fighting pits reopen."
Dany knew his seven, by name if not by sight. All had been amongst the most famed of Meereen's fighting slaves … and it had been the fighting slaves, freed from their shackles by her sewer rats, who led the uprising that won the city for her. She owed them a blood debt. "I will hear you," she allowed. -ADWD, Daenerys II

Much of the talk about the table was of the matches to be fought upon the morrow. Barsena Blackhair was going to face a boar, his tusks against her dagger. Khrazz was fighting, as was the Spotted Cat. And in the day's final pairing, Goghor the Giant would go against Belaquo Bonebreaker. One would be dead before the sun went down. No queen has clean hands, Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea. Better a few should die in the pit than thousands at the gates. This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost. -ADWD, Daenerys VIII
Hizdahr later takes several of these pit fighters as protectors:
"Might I know which men His Grace has chosen to protect him?"
Reznak mo Reznak smiled his slimy smile. "Fearsome fighters, who love His Worship well. Goghor the Giant. Khrazz. The Spotted Cat. Belaquo Bonebreaker. Heroes all."
Pit fighters all. Ser Barristan was unsurprised. Hizdahr zo Loraq sat uneasily on his new throne. It had been a thousand years since Meereen last had a king, and there were some even amongst the old blood who thought they might have made a better choice than him. Outside the city sat the Yunkai'i with their sellswords and their allies; inside were the Sons of the Harpy. -ADWD, The Queensguard
and:
To the right of the twin thrones stood Goghor the Giant, a huge hulk of a man with a brutal, scarred face. To the left was the Spotted Cat, a leopard skin flung over one shoulder. Back of them were Belaquo Bonebreaker and the cold-eyed Khrazz. Seasoned killers all, thought Selmy, but it is one thing to face a foe in the pit when his coming is heralded by horns and drums and another to find a hidden killer before he can strike. -ADWD, The Discarded Knight
and:
And across the table from Ser Barristan sat four of King Hizdahr's erstwhile guardsmen, the pit fighters Goghor the Giant, Belaquo Bonebreaker, Camarron of the Count, and the Spotted Cat. Selmy had insisted on their presence, over the objections of Skahaz Shavepate. They had helped Daenerys Targaryen take this city once, and that should not be forgotten. Blood-soaked brutes and killers they might be, but in their own way they had been loyal … to King Hizdahr, yes, but to the queen as well. -ADWD, The Queen's Hand
Barsena Blackhair
A true "warrior woman". Barsena fights and is killed by a boar in the reopening of Daznak's Pit. Before Drogon descends.
Belaquo Bonebreaker
Accompanies Hizdahr. Known to use a flail. Was supposed to fight Goghor the Giant.
Dany could hear her handmaids arguing behind her, debating who was going to win the day's final match. Jhiqui favored the gigantic Goghor, who looked more bull than man, even to the bronze ring in his nose. Irri insisted that Belaquo Bonebreaker's flail would prove the giant's undoing.
Camarron of the Count
Accompanies Hizdahr and sits on the council.
Camarron of the Count put forth a scheme to seize the ships tied up along the riverfront and use the Skahazadhan to bring three hundred pit fighters around the Yunkish rear. -ADWD, The Queen's Hand
Goghor the Giant
Goghor is a giant of a man who has been training/fighting since he was a child.
"I train since three," said Goghor the Giant. "I kill since six. Mother of Dragons says I am free. Why not free to fight?"
"If it is fighting you want, fight for me. Swear your sword to the Mother's Men or the Free Brothers or the Stalwart Shields. Teach my other freedmen how to fight."
Goghor shook his head. "Before, I fight for master. You say, fight for you. I say, fight for me." The huge man thumped his chest with a fist as big as a ham. "For gold. For glory." - ADWD, Daenerys II
and:
Jhiqui favored the gigantic Goghor, who looked more bull than man, even to the bronze ring in his nose. -ADWD, Daenerys IX
and:
To the right of the twin thrones stood Goghor the Giant, a huge hulk of a man with a brutal, scarred face. -ADWD, The Queensguard
Fearless Ithoke
Only mentioned accompanying Hizdahr and at the Spire of Skulls.
Khrazz
Khrazz is Meereenese and a good fighter who is later defeated by Barristan.
Khrazz was Meereenese, of humble birth—a tall man with a brush of stiff red-black hair running down the center of his head. His foe was an ebon-skinned spearman from the Summer Isles whose thrusts kept Khrazz at bay for a time, but once he slipped inside the spear with his shortsword, only butchery remained. After it was done, Khrazz cut the heart from the black man, raised it above his head red and dripping, and took a bite from it. -ADWD, Daenerys IX

"He will not escape." Selmy did not fear Khrazz, much less Steelskin. They were only pit fighters. Hizdahr's fearsome collection of former fighting slaves made indifferent guards at best. Speed and strength and ferocity they had, and some skill at arms as well, but blood games were poor training for protecting kings. In the pits their foes were announced with horns and drums, and after the battle was done and won the victors could have their wounds bound up and quaff some milk of the poppy for the pain, knowing that the threat was past and they were free to drink and feast and whore until the next fight. But the battle was never truly done for a knight of the Kingsguard. Threats came from everywhere and nowhere, at any time of day or night. No trumpets announced the foe: vassals, servants, friends, brothers, sons, even wives, any of them might have knives concealed beneath their cloaks and murder hidden in their hearts. For every hour of fighting, a Kingsguard knight spent ten thousand hours watching, waiting, standing silent in the shadows. King Hizdahr's pit fighters were already growing bored and restive with their new duties, and bored men were lax, slow to react.
Barristan has a 1v1 with an unarmored Khrazz:
"I shall deal with Khrazz," said Ser Barristan. "Just make certain I do not need to deal with any Brazen Beasts as well."
Ser Barristan heard a door open, somewhere to his left. He turned in time to see Khrazz emerge from behind a tapestry. He moved slowly, still groggy from sleep, but his weapon of choice was in his hand: a Dothraki arakh, long and curved. A slasher's sword, made to deliver deep, slicing cuts from horseback. A murderous blade against half-naked foes, in the pit or on the battlefield. But here at close quarters, the arakh's length would tell against it, and Barristan Selmy was clad in plate and mail.
"I am here for Hizdahr," the knight said. "Throw down your steel and stand aside, and no harm need come to you."
Khrazz laughed. "Old man. I will eat your heart." The two men were of a height, but Khrazz was two stone heavier and forty years younger, with pale skin, dead eyes, and a crest of bristly red-black hair that ran from his brow to the base of his neck.
"Then come," said Barristan the Bold.
Khrazz came.
For the first time all day, Selmy felt certain. This is what I was made for, he thought. The dance, the sweet steel song, a sword in my hand and a foe before me.
The pit fighter was fast, blazing fast, as quick as any man Ser Barristan had ever fought. In those big hands, the arakh became a whistling blur, a steel storm that seemed to come at the old knight from three directions at once. Most of the cuts were aimed at his head. Khrazz was no fool. Without a helm, Selmy was most vulnerable above the neck.
He blocked the blows calmly, his longsword meeting each slash and turning it aside. The blades rang and rang again. Ser Barristan retreated. On the edge of his vision, he saw the cupbearers watching with eyes as big and white as chicken eggs. Khrazz cursed and turned a high cut into a low one, slipping past the old knight's blade for once, only to have his blow scrape uselessly off a white steel greave. Selmy's answering slash found the pit fighter's left shoulder, parting the fine linen to bite the flesh beneath. His yellow tunic began to turn pink, then red.
"Only cowards dress in iron," Khrazz declared, circling. No one wore armor in the fighting pits. It was blood the crowds came for: death, dismemberment, and shrieks of agony, the music of the scarlet sands.
Ser Barristan turned with him. "This coward is about to kill you, ser." The man was no knight, but his courage had earned him that much courtesy. Khrazz did not know how to fight a man in armor. Ser Barristan could see it in his eyes: doubt, confusion, the beginnings of fear. The pit fighter came on again, screaming this time, as if sound could slay his foe where steel could not. The arakh slashed low, high, low again.
Selmy blocked the cuts at his head and let his armor stop the rest, whilst his own blade opened the pit fighter's cheek from ear to mouth, then traced a raw red gash across his chest. Blood welled from Khrazz's wounds. That only seemed to make him wilder. He seized the brazier with his off hand and flipped it, scattering embers and hot coals at Selmy's feet. Ser Barristan leapt over them. Khrazz slashed at his arm and caught him, but the arakh could only chip the hard enamel before it met the steel below.
"In the pit that would have taken your arm off, old man."
"We are not in the pit."
"It is not too late to throw down your steel. Yield."
"Die," spat Khrazz … but as he lifted his arakh, its tip grazed one of the wall hangings and hung. That was all the chance Ser Barristan required. He slashed open the pit fighter's belly, parried the arakh as it wrenched free, then finished Khrazz with a quick thrust to the heart as the pit fighter's entrails came sliding out like a nest of greasy eels.
Blood and viscera stained the king's silk carpets. Selmy took a step back. The longsword in his hand was red for half its length. Here and there the carpets had begun to smolder where some of the scattered coals had fallen. He could hear poor Qezza sobbing. "Don't be afraid," the old knight said. "I mean you no harm, child. I want only the king." -ADWD, The Kingbreaker
Spotted Cat
A pit fighter of unknown origin. A seasoned killer who enjoys single combat and wears a leopard pelt across one shoulder:
The Spotted Cat wore a leopard skin across one shoulder. "The last time I was sold, the price was three hundred thousand honors. When I was a slave, I slept on furs and ate red meat off the bone. Now that I'm free, I sleep on straw and eat salt fish, when I can get it." -ADWD, Daenerys II
and:
"Ah," said Hizdahr, pleased. "Now comes the Spotted Cat. See how he moves, my queen. A poem on two feet."
The foe Hizdahr had found for the walking poem was as tall as Goghor and as broad as Belwas, but slow. They were fighting six feet from Dany's box when the Spotted Cat hamstrung him. As the man stumbled to his knees, the Cat put a foot on his back and a hand around his head and opened his throat from ear to ear. The red sands drank his blood, the wind his final words. The crowd screamed its approval. -ADWD, Daenerys IX
Steelskin
A young pit fighter, not yet regarded as the first rank. Its interesting to note that he is covered in itricate green/black tattoos of valyrian "sorcerer signs":
Outside the carved hardwood doors to the king's chambers stood Steelskin, a younger pit fighter, not yet regarded as of the first rank. His cheeks and brow were scarred with intricate tattoos in green and black, ancient Valyrian sorcerer's signs that supposedly made his flesh and skin as hard as steel. Similar markings covered his chest and arms, though whether they would actually stop a sword or axe remained to be seen.
Even without them, Steelskin looked formidable—a lean and wiry youth who overtopped Ser Barristan by half a foot. "Who goes there?" he called out, swinging his longaxe sideways to bar their way. When he saw Ser Barristan, with the brass locusts behind him, he lowered it again. "Old Ser
Ser Barristan sheathed his sword and pulled Hizdahr to his feet. "Come. I will escort you to a cell." By now, the Brazen Beasts should have disarmed Steelskin. -ADWD, The Kingbreaker
Steelskin's tattoos somewhat remind me of the Royce's armor
Togosh, Senerra She-Snake, Orlos the Catamite, Marrigo, the Brindled Butcher
These characters are all only mentioned when Barristan sees a group of Pit fighters gathering near the ghastly Spire of Skulls
Not far from them, about the ghastly monument the Great Masters called the Spire of Skulls, several hundred pit fighters had gathered. Selmy saw the Spotted Cat amongst them. Beside him stood Fearless Ithoke, and elsewhere Senerra She-Snake, Camarron of the Count, the Brindled Butcher, Togosh, Marrigo, Orlos the Catamite.
We don't know anything about them other than their epitaphs which does give us a little bit of information such as Senerra She-Snake (rolls off the tongue like Shiera SeaStar, doubt it means anything) Orlos the Catamite (Possibly a previous boy lover of a nobleman somewhere), and the Brindled Butcher (possibly a brindled man from Sothoryos).
Dothraki
According to Strong Belwas, Dothraki men fight in the pits as well:
Ko Aggo and Ko Jhogo are blood of my blood. They crossed the red waste with me, and saw my dragons born."
"Horse boys." Belwas grinned toothily. "Belwas has killed many horse boys in the fighting pits. They jingle when they die." -ACOK, Daenerys II
Numerous other races of people as well:
Pale Qartheen, black Summer Islanders, copper-skinned Dothraki, Tyroshi with blue beards, Lamb Men, Jogos Nhai, sullen Braavosi, brindle-skinned half-men from the jungles of Sothoros—from the ends of the world they came to die in Daznak's Pit. "This one shows much promise, my sweet," Hizdahr said of a Lysene youth with long blond hair that fluttered in the wind … but his foe grabbed a handful of that hair, pulled the boy off-balance, and gutted him. In death he looked even younger than he had with blade in hand. "A boy," said Dany. "He was only a boy." -ADWD, Daenerys IX

Reopening of Daznak's Pit

With the reopening of the games, numerous changes were made.
Changes to Condemned Criminals
It had been the custom to sentence criminals to the pits; that practice she agreed might resume, but only for certain crimes. "Murderers and rapers may be forced to fight, and all those who persist in slaving, but not thieves or debtors." -ADWD, Daenerys IX
Venatio/Bestiarii
Beasts were still allowed, though. Dany watched an elephant make short work of a pack of six red wolves. Next a bull was set against a bear in a bloody battle that left both animals torn and dying. "The flesh is not wasted," said Hizdahr. "The butchers use the carcasses to make a healthful stew for the hungry. Any man who presents himself at the Gates of Fate may have a bowl."
We see this take place elsewhere as well (Basilisk vs. Dog in Qarth).
Examples of animals battling in ASOIAF
Some truly sad things happen in this series:
"Ask her if she wishes to view our fighting pits," Kraznys added. "Douquor's Pit has a fine folly scheduled for the evening. A bear and three small boys. One boy will be rolled in honey, one in blood, and one in rotting fish, and she may wager on which the bear will eat first."-ASOS, Daenerys II
Mock Battles
After the beast fights came a mock battle, pitting six men on foot against six horsemen, the former armed with shields and longswords, the latter with Dothraki arakhs. The mock knights were clad in mail hauberks, whilst the mock Dothraki wore no armor. At first the riders seemed to have the advantage, riding down two of their foes and slashing the ear from a third, but then the surviving knights began to attack the horses, and one by one the riders were unmounted and slain, to Jhiqui's great disgust. "That was no true khalasar," she said. -ADWD, Daenerys IX
and:
Astapor's brave defenders are so much chaff, it's true. Old names and fat purses who dress up as Ghiscari scourges to pretend they still rule a vast empire. Every one is a high officer. On feastdays they fight mock wars in the pits to demonstrate what brilliant commanders they are, but it's the eunuchs who do the dying. -ASOS, Daenerys II
Follies
Another small victory. Perhaps I cannot make my people good, she told herself, but I should at least try to make them a little less bad. Daenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. The queen had also wished to forbid the follies, comic combats where cripples, dwarfs, and crones had at one another with cleavers, torches, and hammers (the more inept the fighters, the funnier the folly, it was thought), but Hizdahr said his people would love her more if she laughed with them, and argued that without such frolics, the cripples, dwarfs, and crones would starve. So Dany had relented. -ADWD, Daenerys IX
Later Tyrion and Penny are almost fed to Lions:
The battle was followed by the day's first folly, a tilt between a pair of jousting dwarfs, presented by one of the Yunkish lords that Hizdahr had invited to the games. One rode a hound, the other a sow. Their wooden armor had been freshly painted, so one bore the stag of the usurper Robert Baratheon, the other the golden lion of House Lannister. That was for her sake, plainly. Their antics soon had Belwas snorting laughter, though Dany's smile was faint and forced. When the dwarf in red tumbled from the saddle and began to chase his sow across the sands, whilst the dwarf on the dog galloped after him, whapping at his buttocks with a wooden sword, she said, "This is sweet and silly, but …"
"Be patient, my sweet," said Hizdahr. "They are about to loose the lions."
"Three of them. The dwarfs will not expect them."
She frowned. "The dwarfs have wooden swords. Wooden armor. How do you expect them to fight lions?"
"Badly," said Hizdahr, "though perhaps they will surprise us. More like they will shriek and run about and try to climb out of the pit. That is what makes this a folly."
Dany was not pleased. "I forbid it." -ADWD, Daenerys IX
Red Book
The history of the fighting pits of Meereen known as the Red Book, written by an unknown Yunkish hand and translated centuries after by Maester Elkin, makes passing reference to the fact that many of the Ibbenese women sold into slavery ended their days in the fighting pits of Meereen, Yunkai, and Astapor, for the slavers of the south deemed them too ugly to serve as bed slaves and too savage to use as field hands. -TWOIAF, Beyond The Free Cities: Ib
Gate of Fate
"Their names shall be graven on the Gates of Fate amongst the other valiant fallen," declared Barsena. For eight years she had slain every other woman sent against her, it was said. "All men must die, and women too … but not all will be remembered." -ADWD, Daenerys IIDaenerys would have prohibited contests between women as well, but Barsena Blackhair protested that she had as much right to risk her life as any man. -ADWD, Daenerys IX

Post Dany

Barristan closes the pits:
"The fighting pits will remain closed," said Selmy. "Blood and noise would only serve to call the dragons." -ADWD, The Queen's Hand
The pits are used to store meat for the loose dragons (who seem to prefer mutton):
"Her Grace will return when she returns," said Ser Barristan. "We have herded a thousand sheep into the Daznak's Pit, filled the Pit of Ghrazz with bullocks, and the Golden Pit with beasts that Hizdahr zo Loraq had gathered for his games." Thus far both dragons seemed to have a taste for mutton, returning to Daznak's whenever they grew hungry. If either one was hunting man, inside or outside the city, Ser Barristan had yet to hear of it. The only Meereenese the dragons had slain since Harghaz the Hero had been the slavers foolish enough to object when Rhaegal attempted to make his lair atop the pyramid of Hazkar. "We have more pressing matters to discuss. I have sent the Green Grace to the Yunkishmen to make arrangements for the release of our hostages. I expect her back by midday with their answer." -ADWD, The Queen's Hand
Some of Barristan's "lads" were training for the pits:
Some of them had been training for the fighting pits when Daenerys Targaryen took Meereen and freed them from their chains. Those had had a good acquaintance with sword and spear and battle-axe even before Ser Barristan got hold of them. A few might well be ready. The boy from the Basilisk Isles, for a start. Tumco Lho. Black as maester's ink he was, but fast and strong, the best natural swordsman Selmy had seen since Jaime Lannister. Larraq as well. The Lash. Ser Barristan did not approve of his fighting style, but there was no doubting his skills. Larraq had years of work ahead of him before he mastered proper knightly weapons, sword and lance and mace, but he was deadly with his whip and trident. The old knight had warned him that the whip would be useless against an armored foe … until he saw how Larraq used it, snapping it around the legs of his opponents to yank them off their feet. No knight as yet, but a fierce fighter.
Larraq and Tumco were his best. After them the Lhazarene, the one the other boys called Red Lamb, though as yet that one was all ferocity and no technique. Perhaps the brothers too, three lowborn Ghiscari enslaved to pay their father's debts. -ADWD, The Kingbreaker
While Hizdahr has their loyalty, the pit fighters aren't commanders
Belaquo Bonebreaker and Goghor the Giant might serve as Hizdahr's shields, but the notion of either leading an army into battle was so ludicrous that the old knight almost smiled. -ADWD, The Queensguard

The Battle of Fire

The Pit Fighters are convinced to help defend Meereen.
Not far from them, about the ghastly monument the Great Masters called the Spire of Skulls, several hundred pit fighters had gathered. Selmy saw the Spotted Cat amongst them. Beside him stood Fearless Ithoke, and elsewhere Senerra She-Snake, Camarron of the Count, the Brindled Butcher, Togosh, Marrigo, Orlos the Catamite. Even Goghor the Giant was there, towering above the others like a man amongst boys. Freedom means something to them after all, it would seem**. The pit fighters had more love for Hizdahr than they had ever shown Daenerys, but Selmy was glad to have them all the same.** Some are even wearing armor**, he observed. Perhaps his defeat of Khrazz had taught them something.** -TWOW, Barristan I
Their leaders:
Thousands turned as one to watch as the old knight wheeled his horse around in the shadow of the great iron-banded gates. Barristan Selmy could feel their eyes upon him. The captains and commanders advanced to meet him. Jokin and the Widower for the Stormcrows, ringmail clinking under faded cloaks; Grey Worm, Sure Spear, and Dogkiller for the Unsullied, in spiked bronze caps and quilted armor; Rommo for the Dothraki; Camarron, Goghor, and the Spotted Cat for the pit fighters. -TWOW, Barristan I
Barristan gives them orders for the Battle of Fire:
Ser Barristan turned in the saddle. "Cat, Goghor, Camarron, your men will follow afoot. You are known as fearsome fighters. Frighten them. Scream and shout. By the time you reach the Yunkish lines, our horsemen should have broken through. Follow them into the breach, and do as much slaughter as you can. Where you can, spare the slaves and cut down their masters, the noblemen and officers. Fall back before you are surrounded."
Goghor smashed a fist against his chest. "Goghor not fall back. Never."
Then Goghor die, the old knight thought, soon. But this was not the time nor place for that argument. He let it pass, and said, "These attacks should distract the Yunkai'i long enough for Grey Worm to march the Unsullied out the gate and form up." That was where his plan would rise or fall, he knew. If the Yunkish commanders had any sense, they would send their horse thundering down on the eunuchs before they could form ranks, when they were most vulnerable. His own cavalry would have to prevent that long enough for the Unsullied to lock shields and raise their wall of spears. "At the sound of my horn, Grey Worm will advance in line and roll up the slavers and their soldiers. It may be that one or more Ghiscari legions will march out to meet them, shield to shield and spear to spear. That battle we shall surely win." -TWOW, Barristan I
Final sight:
There are three horn blasts and the pitfighters emerge from the gate behind them. Barristan glances back to see the pitfighters. There are about two hundred of them, but they make enough noise for two thousand. One woman stands out, wearing nothing but greaves, sandals, a chainmail skirt, and a python. Barristan is a bit shocked and, watching her breasts bouncing around, thinks that this day is sure to be her last. The pitfighters are mostly shouting “Loraq!” and “Hizdar!” but some do call out “Danaerys!” -TWOW, Barristan II

TLDR: Just about everything I could come up with involving pit fighting in the ASOIAF universe.
submitted by LChris24 to asoiaf [link] [comments]

[No Spoilers] More fanfic, this time from the perspective of a born and raised Gilead Girl. Also unfinished.

Victoria’s Story
Everyone wants to know what it was like. How did you live? What did you do? What did you learn?
How did you escape?
The truth is I didn’t. Escape implies you got yourself out. I did no such thing. I was rescued. And before I was deprogrammed, I would’ve described it as kidnapping instead!
I don’t blame you, by the way, for wanting to know. It’s only natural to be curious about something so alien. I might as well have grown up on another planet and I was born and raised only about 1000 miles away from the spot I sit now.
I suppose the best place to start is the beginning and my beginning in Gilead was my birth. At my birth, my mother named me Victoria Faith, declaring both figuratively to all and literally to the room of gathered women that my birth was a victory of the faithful against the sinful outside world. She just loved telling me that story. I was enthralled by it as a girl. Now I’m not so sure why I ever found such joy in my birth story. Now that I know how many lies she told.
Dresses
I had two sets of dresses, sweaters, and caps, one for each half of the year. For spring and summer, soft dusty pink; for fall and winter, rich plum. On the equinox (a word which held no meaning to me until I got out and started to learn), I would finally be allowed to switch to the new dresses, though Mother would’ve instructed our Marthas to unpack the trunk of dresses and wash them up about a week before the day of.
I also had three white dresses, two in my summer set and one wool one in my winter set. They came with veils instead of just caps to cover our hair. They were our special dresses. We wore those for special outings to Prayvaganzas and Salvagings once we were old enough.
My earliest memory is of a dress. It was my fifth birthday present but looking back, I’m not sure I’d still call it a present. A present would’ve been a new doll or some new paints. Painting was one of the few things girls were allowed to learn.
No, this dress was not a present but a mandate. Mother didn’t even let me dress in my old dresses for the day. I was awoken by her and Gloria pulling my dresses out of my closet. I rightly asked what was going on but instead of answering me, Mother pulled me up out of bed and sat me down next to a large pink box sitting next to my dollhouse. I was ecstatic thinking of the dolls and furniture that could be inside. But opening the lid dashed my tiny hopes just as they were built up.
A box full of fabric. She pulled one from the top, a light pink one since I was born in the springtime, and held it up to me.
“It should fit her perfectly.”
“Indeed Ma’am, and the Aunts at Lillies leave plenty of excess in the hem so I can let it down as she grows.”
“Oh how wonderful! What brilliance! Instead of wastefully buying her an entire new wardrobe, I can just have her skirts let down! Praise be!”
I didn’t understand any of this, I was just digging in the box. Pink, pink, pink, plum, plum, plum, white, white, white.
“Mama, why did I get new dresses? These look the same as my old ones and I like those ones.”
She crouched down next to me and pet my head like I was a little pup.
“Well sweetie, as little girls become big girls, they must cover their bodies. You’re a big girl now so now you need to cover more than a little girl does. Don’t you want to be a good big girl?”
My only response was a meek “yes Mama” accompanied by a small nod. I didn’t understand though. What she said didn’t make any more sense than gibberish. But I was blinded by my childlike zeal for being considered big and mature, so I gave no further objections when I was bundled into a dress that fell to my ankles and all of my short dresses were packed away in a trunk. My big girl self even helped fold the knee dresses. And then Max hauled the trunk down to our basement. I did ask why they were going in the basement and Mama said that was because she hoped that they might give me a little sister someday and they’ll need them for her.
I foolishly declared that she didn’t need any more babies because she had me and that I didn’t want a baby sister. That just elicited chuckles and more head patting.
“All babies are a blessing and all should pray for as many babies as God sees fit to bless them with.”
Blessings
My family was quite blessed. Others would say wealthy, maybe even rich, but Papa forbade such language.
“All that we have is given to us by God. We are not wealthy, we are blessed by the Lord, Praise be.”
I started correcting my schoolmates when they called me rich. I could quote my Papa’s words verbatim. The truth is though, we were rich. We were very rich. We had things that a few of my classmates could only dream of. My Papa being a very high ranking Commander, we had a huge house with rooms to spare. We had four Marthas, three floors, two cars, and a huge tree in the backyard. There were boards nailed to its trunk in a ladder going up but to what and for what purpose I could only guess. Heaven only knows who would be climbing into that tree or why one even would do so.
But why did my fingers itch to do exactly that then?
In short, we were very rich. In every way but one. Every Handmaid that passed through our walls never bore a single child. Mama said God sent her an actual angel and that’s why we hadn’t been blessed with another baby yet. Because she had her angel and she’d been blessed well enough already. That didn’t seem to stop her from wanting another child though. Was an angel not enough?
Meanwhile my best friend Grace had two siblings! That’s three children in one household! I used to think “Commander Weber is surely blessed, Praise be. He and his wife are very lucky.” They had their oldest daughter, my best friend Grace, as well as a second daughter Modesty and a son they named Adam. Adam was a little tot and I wished to spend as much time at their house as I could because of it. I just love babies and toddlers so much and I always have. I couldn’t wait to be a mother someday! “To be a mother is so noble.” That’s what I always thought.
Grace claimed she should never have children but I thought that a silly notion. Who doesn’t want children? She didn’t want to get married either and that was just pure scandal. For a girl of our status, we had no choice whatsoever in marriage. It is not something we can avoid. At least not in most cases. Obviously she found a way because we are here instead of in Gilead. Our marriages would’ve taken place today.
Praise fucking be.
Learning
I’m often asked what I actually learned in Gilead, considering I needed to be taught to read and write at the age of 15. I learned many things, few of them useful. I learned useful things like painting, embroidery, knitting, crocheting, sewing, even more advanced skills like quilting. What was lacking in my education is obvious in retrospect but as a child I never questioned it. I just happily made the crafts I was taught.
I would knit or crochet all day long as a child. I made many tiny baby caps, both for my many beloved baby dolls and for the unfortunately few blessed babies born in Gilead. I had four dolls, most often dressed as two sets of twins one boy pair and one girl pair. Sometimes I dressed them all in dresses and pretended they were quadruplets! We learned that word in school when we were being taught how women used to be so abundantly blessed before they started turning away from God and the blessing of babies. We learnt of women able to bear as many as 8 babies from one pregnancy! Imagine that! Imagine being so pious that God would reward you so greatly! Just imagine...
The better hats and blankets were sent to the Aunts so they could be used for the babies born in Gilead. I made them in pink and blue and grey, the grey sets going to the Econo-children. Theirs was a life entirely different from my own. The Econogirls learned many more things than we did, many useful skills. For most of them, their future held a low class husband whom she would wait on like a Martha despite her status as his wife, and struggle to bear children for him on her own, with no Handmaid to bear on her behalf. That is why the Econogirls and Econowives sometimes wore striped dresses, green and blue and red and grey. These girls were always very busy but sometimes they seemed happier than us. They were allowed even a tiny sliver more freedom. Heck, they could even work, in a way.
Freedom is something I always envied of other children. Other girls may not have had as many toys but they were watched far less. I had a Martha acting as my governess and keeping her eye on me at all times.
Growing up in Gilead, I never thought this bizarre. There were Eyes and their symbol everywhere I went, everywhere I looked. So having a physical eye upon me at all times wasn’t odd or invasive. It seemed normal to me at the time.
Now I shudder whenever I remember the surveillance.
Gloria was a lovely woman, a sweet old woman easily 40 or so when I was born. She doted on me like no other and spoiled me rotten. Mother spoiled me more but she was a bit colder. Mother was an ice queen, with platinum blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a cold heart. She did love me dearly, I’m sure of it. But she just didn’t know how to give affection to me or to anyone. I never once saw her kiss my Papa.
Beatrice was our cook and I loved spending all my time with her and Gloria in the kitchen. I wasn’t allowed to help them, admonished that hard work would ruin my hands and that I was meant to be a Wife, I don’t need to work, that’s what Marthas are for. But I could stay and enjoy the scents and their chatter. I would sit at a small table in what Mother called the breakfast nook and work on my embroidery or my knitting and the Marthas would forget that I was even there, gossiping freely despite my presence. Being quiet as a church mouse gave many benefits at times even if I felt too shy to make many friends amongst the girls who were my peers.
Beatrice was a sharp and witty woman who ran her mouth at times, talking about things I’ve never heard of. She used to ride something called a motorcycle, which she explained to me as a bike but as fast as a car. I have only seen bikes, I’ve seen boys riding them in the park while we were escorted out to get some sun during our school day. As soon as the boys saw Aunt Gertrude, they turned around and started rushing away as fast as their legs could peddle, one of them throwing a call of “Sorry Ma’am” over his shoulder as he sped after his companion.
Aunt Gertrude huffed and started ranting about boys and their bad behavior but I heard none of it because that itchy feeling was back. This time my whole legs itched and twitched and longed to stretch on those bikes.
Not that I could ride in the long dress I was wearing. My skirt came to my ankles so it would get tangled up and I would crash. My shoes probably wouldn’t work well either, being soft slippers made of dyed cotton canvas. The shoes were quite nice for twirling though. I used to love twirling about my room with my skirt billowing around me. I felt very pretty and regal, had I known of princesses I would’ve felt like one.
I wasn’t really supposed to be doing the twirling at all. Once I had done it in the park on a class walk and I was given a good swat right there in the park and then a full spanking back in the school, my skirts lifted and all. Aunt Gertrude is wretchedly cruel. She called me a tiny temptress trying to lure attention and eyes to me with my sinful dancing. I sobbed so hard I vomited a little onto her skirts which earned me an extra two blows.
But twirling about felt so lovely and relaxing that I kept doing it in spite of her, keeping it in secret instead.
Virginia
Starting in the Vidala School at age five, the same age that I lost my short skirts, the only bright spot of my very first day was meeting and being with Virginia. She was sitting in the room already and Aunt Debbie sat us next to each other. Suddenly I was wishing to run back outside and beg Mother to take me home. But our car had already pulled away and I watched it pass through the gates while Virginia chatted happily next to me. I finally snapped back to reality when she started waving her hand in my face. I apologized and she made the joke that she’s glad I didn’t go to Heaven on her, she didn’t want to lose a friend so quickly. We shared a laugh and I immediately felt at ease again.
As we spent the day learning the very basics of knitting, we were allowed to chat quietly and sit in small groups around the room. Aunt Gertrude only teaches the older girls, the youngest girls work with a different Aunt, Aunt Betty. She was an absolute peach, allowing us relax a lot more than we would be allowed when we were older. So we spent the whole day and then the whole of our first years at the Vidala School talking endlessly together.
She was a very chatty girl, often getting us a scolding for disrupting the lectures Aunt Betty would give with our laughter. I didn’t really mind much though, I was happy to be able to talk with her. She was bright and spirited in a way that I just wasn’t. Next to her I felt like a tiny dim star next to the brightest one in the sky. But she lent me her own shine and lifted my spirits greatly.
Mother wasn’t the happiest that I was friends with Dr. Dare’s daughter. She felt he was a bit low class and she disliked him and his whole family. Papa was a very high ranking Commander and she felt it was beneath me to socialize with a mere doctor’s daughter. I never understood that thought process, Dr. Dare was never anything but kind and friendly to me. And his daughter was just like him, very lovely and sweet. She was very friendly with me and every other girl in our school. Though she was known to be a bit of a wild girl, and she definitely was, but she was very kind.
She really was wild and that got her into plenty of trouble. She was curious, asking too many questions and not accepting half-answers. She was rowdy and had too much energy, never sitting still. She was sassy, talking back and making faces. She was this, she was that, she was everything it was bad for a girl to be.
I would learn when I got older that boys were allowed to be all of those things and it was perfectly fine. Just not for girls.
Virginia was my very best friend for many years, my sole companion for half of my life. I was like her other half and she was like mine. I was quiet to her loud, soft to her rough, meek to her bold, anxious to her brave. We were like two halves of a whole girl and we were attached at the hip.
And the came the day that something very strange happened in our Vidala School. Something that had never happened before in our area of Gilead.
We got a new student.
Grace
I still remember it like it was yesterday.
“Girls! I have a special announcement. We have been blessed with a new incoming student. Please make her feel welcome and help her catch up with the class. This is Grace, please welcome her girls,” Aunt Gertrude monologued to us early one spring morning.
It must’ve been early spring because I remember I had only just gotten my pink dresses out again. They still smelled very faintly of mothballs despite them being cleaned before I was allowed to switch to them. I was so happy though because I adored my pink dresses. Pink was my favorite color back then and the first day of spring was my favorite day of the year because I could finally switch to my pink dresses again.
While I was sitting in the classroom feeling a bit of sinful pride in my looks, Aunt Debbie guides in a tiny slip of a girl wearing a pink dress at least a size too big for her and staring at her feet. She looked like she hoped that the longer she stared at the floor, the more likely it was that it might decide to open and swallow her up. Under her cap was a shock of bright orange hair that I just couldn’t keep my eyes off of. While my shyness kept my feet rooted to the floor, Virginia skipped right over to her and welcomed her into the class. Aunt Debbie decided she was in capable hands and allowed Virginia to guide her back over to where we were sitting by the window. She dragged a chair over and the new girl silently sat down, chewing on her lips.
“H-hello Grace. I’m Victoria.”
“Nice to meet you...”
Virginia chatted along happily as we did our embroidery that day. Grace said almost nothing the entire day. She knew her stitching decently well, surely she had must moved here from somewhere else, from another place in Gilead and another Vidala School. I chanced to ask her about where she was from during lunch.
We were given a hearty vegetable soup and thick slices of bread with applesauce for dessert and milk, milk for every meal. It was very simple but it was quite delicious and it was one of my favorite lunches, probably part of why I even remember what we ate that day. While Virginia noisily slurped down her soup, same as always, Grace was just picking and nibbling and sipping at her meal.
Mumbling slightly for I was rather nervous, I started asking Grace more about herself.
“It’s not often that we get new girls around here. May I ask where your family moved from?”
I didn’t mean to upset her but she cringed at my question. She took a deep breath and then gave me what I now recognize as a very rehearsed response.
In almost a monotone, Grace replied, “I’ve been saved and adopted by my loving family. I’m very grateful to Commander and Mother for taking me into their family.”
Now before this, I had never heard of adoption before. I only knew that mothers had babies and that was it. So I had many questions for her after that. Virginia did too, behaving quite rudely by asking her questions despite her full mouth.
Grace absolutely refused to answer a single question, keeping her mouth shut and only repeating that she was grateful to be saved.
She never did explain what she was saved from.
Now that I know, I’m not sure if I prefer my prior ignorance or not.
Mother
Mother was a lovely woman, very beautiful in features. Though vanity was highly discouraged, nothing could really quash this innate sense of vanity we developed as we grew. I knew that Mother was a beautiful woman because she had smooth pale skin, icy blue eyes, and pale golden hair. As I became a young girl and grew conscious of my body, I found many questions about myself. Sure, I had similar pale skin to my mother, but my hair was thick and dark brown and my eyes were widow black! Starkly different from the icy, silvery blue of Mother’s eyes.
I felt those eyes on my back constantly. There were always eyes upon me, not just Mother’s. There were symbols of the Eyes everywhere around me, both within and without my home. Not just symbolically was I being watched either. Gloria was one of our Marthas who was tasked by Mother to act as my Governess. When I was not at school, I was always with her. She accompanied me to and from school, though she left me in the care of the Aunts there, and every other time I was taken anywhere in the car. She even had a bed in my room! Apparently her belongings and another bed for her were up in the room the Marthas shared in the attic but Mother wanted her to keep watch over me while I slept. This started when I was a baby and simply never ceased.
Being watched was something constant in my life. I can’t remember a single moment I was left alone that wasn’t when I was in a bathroom.
submitted by NerdyNinjaAssassin to TheHandmaidsTale [link] [comments]

My personal Collection! (In List Form)

Here’s a List of my collection, I collect all kinds of things, not just a specific item type!
I love finding things I don't have or haven't seen before!
If you have any questions I can try my hardest to answer for you and if you want to see any specific item I can post a photo for you! (except most of the folklore merch for obvious reasons lol) Just let me know!
________________________________________
CD Collection:
Taylor Swift Era:
Albums
Vinyl
Misc…
Fearless Era:
Albums
Singles
Boxsets
Vinyl
CMA Consideration
Misc..
DVDsBluray
Speak Now Era:
Albums
Singles
CMA/ACM Considerations
Speak Now World Tour
Vinyl
Misc…
Red Era:
Albums
Singles
Vinyl
Misc…
1989 Era:
Albums
Singles
Vinyl
Misc…
reputation Era:
Albums
Singles
Cassette
Vinyl
DVDs
Lover Era:
Albums
Singles
Vinyl
Cassette
Folklore Era
Albums
Singles
Vinyl
Cassettes
Shirts/Hoodies/Scarves/Towels/Hats:
Taylor Swift Era:
Fearless Era:
Speak Now Era:
Red Era:
1989 Era:
Reputation Era:
Lover Era:
Folklore Era:
Keds:
Posters:
Notebooks/Journal/Folders:
Big
Small
Composition
Journal
Folders
Pens
Movies:
8x10 Photos/8x10 Magazine Photos:
Meredith, Olivia & Benjamin Collection:
Books:
Bags:
Blankets/Pillows:
Lithographs:
Autographs:
Standees/Advertisements:
Dolls:
Tour Stuff: (other stuff is in other categories)
American Greeting Cards:
Perfume:
Wonderstruck
Wonderstruck Enchanted
Taylor by Taylor Swift
Taylor by Taylor: Made of Starlight
Incredible Things
Calendars:
7x7
12x12
Locker & Planners
Slim Calendars
Bracelets/Necklaces/Rings/Headbands:
Magazines:
Collector Magazines:
Ornaments:
Other Stuff:
submitted by FearlessStarlight to TaylorSwiftMerch [link] [comments]

[The Extramundane Emancipation of Geela, Evil Sorceress at Large] --- Chapter 6: A Tour of the Town in Search of One Jane Arlington (Fantasy, Comedy)

Synopsis: After hoodwinking Darkos, a holy priest, into escorting her back to her castle, Dark Enchantress Geela has one item left on her list: revenge on her ex-husband. With a confused Darkos in tow, she sets out. However, Geela isn't the only one with secrets. And Barney isn't the only old enemy who's about to get a visit.
Index ||| Previous Chapter ||| Next Chapter
Patreon ||| TalesByOpheliaCyanide
Eleven Jane Arlingtons. Eleven invites to meet up at eleven different shady locations at eleven different times.
All the invitations had been, naturally, extended by one Angelia Fantasimus.
Despite his emotional malaise, Darkos had a begrudging look of respect on his face. “How did you get them to buy it? Can you actually shapeshift like that?”
“Well sure but that’s…” She waved a hand. “Difficult. I didn’t actually invite any of the women.” Geela grinned. “Not directly. I just put on my worst makeup and did a little glamour charm to make my hair that gross shade of red she’s got going on. Did you notice it was dyed?”
“I did.”
“Exactly. So simple enough to fake.” It had actually been disturbingly easy to find where each of them worked. “Did you know that occupation is public information in the Swampy Region?”
“I did not.”
“Right, so not only can you find someone’s house if you know their name, you can also find what their job is and where they work.”
These kinds of garbage policies made Geela a real stickler for privacy. Her castle hadn’t been guarded by hydras, hexed caves, lakes of lava, and, of course, that damned kraken, for nothing. Visitors usually wanted to kill her.
“So you went to their workplace?” Darkos asked, listless.
She narrowed her eyes. How to keep him engaged… “Well, yes. I tracked down their schedules, not hard if you ask the right person the right questions, and was sure to leave my message when she wasn’t there.”
~~~
A redheaded woman with garish lipstick arrives at the Legion Gate Cafe at 11:15. The patrons sit around, sipping their drinks, either late-to-rise tourists or elites with nothing better to do. She walks up to a bespectacled man, washing a dainty teacup behind the counter.
“Excuse me,” Geela purrs. “Might you happen to know when a Jane Arlington will be on shift?”
“Oh dear, Jane? Hmm, yes, let me think.” The man peers at her, as if expecting the cafe’s schedule to appear on her face. “I think she’s in at 1. Maybe 1:30, to be safe.”
“Oh my.” Geela clasps a hand over her mouth. “I think I’m busy then. Can you leave a message?”
‘Jane,
She’s coming for you. That bitch Barney always talked about. You know the one. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t urgent but I have important information that I need to disclose. Meet me at The Quilted Hen/Baker’s Best Goods/The Cracked Turnip/Silver Spoon at exactly 11 AM/12 PM/1 PM…
It’s absolutely essential that we meet before you leave. A matter of life and death.
Angelia’
~~~
“That’s perfect.
“Isn’t it just? And I’m willing to bet that half of them will just straight up ignore it. Some might show up, curious, but one of them is just going to go ‘wait a minute, you’re not Angelia!’” Geela closed her eyes, reveling in the imagined voice of the befuddled woman. Maybe she’d have another screech like old Angie. Or maybe a simpering mewl.
Darkos nodded, lips still pursed in a glum pout. “So why the disguise if she wasn’t even supposed to be there?”
Geela shrugged. “If the coworker says ‘oh some beautiful blonde stopped by asking you to meet her’ no way is Ms. Arlington going to meet. But if he says, for example-”
“-lady with heavy makeup and auburn hair-”
“-bingo.” Geela inhaled deeply. “I just need to make all my stops. It’ll be tight but manageable. And who knows? Maybe she’ll bring Barney with her.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it when you get back in.”
His words sucked Geela’s glee away like an alchemical siphon cleaning up yet another one of her failed potions. “You’re not coming?”
He looked up at her with baleful eyes that would look more at home on their sad pack-mule than on a person. “I can’t. I’ll just be glum and ruin the whole thing.”
Geela wanted him there but couldn’t really argue with this. A grumpy peon just looked lame. It would make her look petty to have a minion whose heart clearly wasn’t into his mistress’s cause. Maybe for the ordinary folk, revenge was petty, but for a dark mistress such as herself, she needed the conviction of all present parties to really sell it.
“I can… delay the meetings?”
He laughed at this, a short, sharp sound, accompanied by no smile. Then, after a moment of silence, he did smile. “You could but you shouldn’t. It’ll be too much work. And I don’t know when I’ll feel better.”
He was absolutely right but that didn’t mean Geela had to like it.
“Well alright,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Sit around and mope. Try to at least get out of the suite though, once or twice. Go buy yourself a pastry or something.” She checked her pocket watch. “I have to get my beauty sleep now. First meeting is 7 AM.”
---
The nice thing about being an all-powerful being is that you got to make your own schedule. Of course, the downside to this is that when you’re forced to break it, it’s miserable.
Geela was not a morning person.
She had just enough courtesy left in her, waking up at the miserable hour of 6 AM, to not slam the door behind her while storming outside for her first meetup. No sense in waking Darkos, who was slumbering enviably in his soft little cloud of a bed. Meanwhile, Geela hadn’t had the time to comb her hair or wash her face and was the perfect picture of tragedy.
“Hi, welcome to Miss Teapot’s, can I get you a seat?” The dead-eyed stare of the hostess at the location of Geela’s first destination matched Geela’s near identically.
“Yes, table for two. Ideally somewhere out of the eye of other customers.”
The hostess glanced around the little pink shop with precisely six tables, all arranged in a circle around a big porcelain teapot. “Yeah, ok, uh. Hold up.”
Geela watched at the young woman walked over to one of the tables. Giving a big sigh, she grabbed it and dragged it, squealing, across the floor, over to a little window alcove. She repeated this action with each of the two chairs. Then she headed back over to Geela.
“Will that do?”
“Um.” Geela peered at the table. “It’s kind of noticeably out of the way. Maybe you could just adjust the other tables so it’s not as clear that one is missing?”
“Um. Ok, yeah. Sure.” If looks could kill, this waitress would be hailed as the greatest hero in the realm.
As it was, Geela felt perfect safe making a few more reasonable requests before she was satisfied with the positioning of the table.
“If a Jane Arlington arrives, tell her ‘Angelia’s over here’ and bring her to me, won’t you?” Geela tossed the woman a honeyed smile before taking her concealed seat. She’d give this Jane half an hour to arrive. If the woman wasn’t here by 7:30, odds are she wasn’t Barney’s Jane.
It was a crummy wait but at least they had tea and plenty of it. Geela needed something strong, with caffeine so she ordered black coffee, extra black, with two tea bags on the side. She didn’t play around when she needed a wakeup and the unfortunate hostess got the distinct pleasure of serving Geela’s particular tastes.
At 7:30, Geela shotgunned the rest of her tea, slapped a few coins on the table, and walked for the door. She noticed the hostess staring at her, thunderous eyed and jaw slack.
“I guess she couldn’t make it,” Geela said. The woman’s outrage was a better pick-me-up than any coffee would be, and despite being one Jane down, Geela was pleased with how the morning had started.
She met her first Jane at the 8 o’clock meeting place. Geela had arranged the spots to be close to each Jane’s house, to increase the likelihood of her showing. That meant this next one was clear out to the edge of town and Geela had had to run. The little store, hilariously misnomered ‘Uncle Ben’s Country Living’ was far from the hick hay-and-hitch farm she’d expected. It was the swamp after all, so hay didn’t exactly grow out here, but she wasn’t anticipating that it’d be a bait shop.
She arrived at the shop, panting and hoping that the highly sought after Jane wouldn’t be here. Geela was in no fit state to intimidate. She had a little transformation routine prepped, complete with flashing lights and barely concealed clothing change, but still didn’t want to be all out of breath.
It was a tick shy of 8 when she slammed open the door. The place smelled of bugs and slime mold, souring Geela’s mood further. Behind the counter, a portly man took her in, lips lopsided with disapproval and surprise.
“Don’t normally get people this excited ‘bout bait. You got the right place, ma’am?”
Geela waved him off. “Looking for Jane,” she said, steadying herself.
“Oh that’s me?” a tentative voice ventured. The owner of the voice was a young woman, if woman was even appropriate. Geela was a bad judge of ages but she’d wager this woman wasn’t a day above 18.
“If you aren’t the wrong person, then I’m really giving that bastard a piece of my mind.” Geela grit her teeth. Barney wouldn't dare. Not with this little thing.
“Um, I’m just here cause I got a letter saying something about life and death?” the girl looked nervous now, fiddling with a little charm on her necklace. “Are you Angelia?”
“Uh, kinda.” Geela straightened up and looked her over. “You seem moderately respectable. You wouldn’t happen to be hiding a dangerous, duplicitous man in your house, would you? Older guy. Balding. We’re talking 70s.”
“I live with my parents,” the girl said. “My dad can be a jerk but he’s not that old and… I’m just here cause the message said something about life or death.”
Not her, not a chance in hell. “It’s possible I have the wrong Jane Arlington.”
The girl wrinkled her nose. “Well, you aren’t the first, lady. At least Angelia’s kinda unique. You’re lucky.”
And that was that.
The nice part of the meeting being on the short side of short was that Geela had plenty of time to make her next destination. But the Waterfront Bakery didn’t yield any Janes and neither did the 11 o’clock meeting at Baker’s Best Goods.
12 o’clock, Silver Spook, Geela found a table in the far corner. This place, though sophisticated with its titular fine silverware, several spindly candles, and even halfway decent classical musicians, understood that some customers just didn’t want to be seen.
The Jane that joined her this time, moving to the table, eyes darting anxiously, was a much better candidate. With high cheekbones and silvery blue eyes, her face was easily pretty enough. She was a scrawny thing, though, looked like maybe she’d never seen the inside of a restaurant, and her dress, though well made, lacked any ornamentation. She just didn’t seem Barney’s type, but who knows?
“You’re Angelina Fantasia?” the woman said, voice a whispery slither. “You left a message with Brian. I’m not sure who Barney is, but if he’s the contact, then I’m ready with the goods at any time.” She fingered the smooth edges of her sleeves and jerked a sharp eye over her shoulder.
“Oh.”
“Has the dropoff zone changed? Or does Lord Regar know? Please tell me and I’ll move the weapons asap.” Her voice was almost too quiet for Geela to hear, but Geela had heard enough.
“Erm, I’m not sure this is what I came for,” she said. She pushed away her glass of wine (it was a bit too early to be drinking and Geela didn’t much care for the drink, but she always felt sophisticated sipping it). “It was lovely meeting you.”
“No! No, I’m serious, Ms. Fantasia, please. I’ll have them ready for you. I even have the sparkle noodles, ready to go. Three pounds of it. Please, I won’t let you down.”
The woman’s voice grew higher, if not louder, as Geela grabbed as many breadsticks as she could, not having had time for lunch to come. “Nope, actually, I’m good. Sorry to have wasted your time.” Sparkle noodles were nasty drugs, especially when crafted by hands as unsteady as this Jane’s. No doubt all her customers would be tripping on some hellish cloud for hours upon taking some.
“Please!”
“Look,” Geela hissed, shoving the last of the bread into her bag, “I’m not Angelina. The name was Angelia—I’m not even sure how you mixed that up—and really, that’s not even my name. You are a terrible smuggler and I hope Angelina fires you before you blow up her whole operation.”
The woman’s face blanched at Geela’s words. “Oh no. No no no. Damnit. What do I do?”
“Really not my business. Have a nice day, Ms. Arlington.” Geela rose from her seat, bristling as she walked briskly to the door. Of all the things she’d stooped to back at school, drug dealing was never one of them.
The next business was The Crusty Crust. Geela had so wanted to avoid this place on its name alone, but sadly, it couldn’t be helped. It one of two businesses close to Jane #5 and the other one, the Gentleman’s Scissor, was a men’s only barbershop.
The streets around the pie shop smelled of sewage and the lingering dampness was already unbearable before she even entered the damn place. The pie shop smelled even worse. The stench was somehow stronger than the bait shop earlier and Geela held back a gag. How someone could even purchase something edible here was beyond Geela. Maybe the barbershop upstairs would have been the better option.
Please please don’t let this be the place.
“Wait a minute, you’re not Angelia!”
Damnit.
Geela rounded on the woman, eyes still watering a bit at the stench. “I’m not surprised that such a sorry excuse for a woman would live in the worst part of town,” Geela said. She raised her hands with a flourish and immediately her shoddy disguise, the red melting from her glittering blond hair, which arranged itself in a majestic sculpture atop her head. The rough-hewn dress turned to vivid green embroidered with silver and as the makeup washed off her face, revealing flawless golden skin, a delicate blue and green mask manifested, resting on the upper half of her face, to prevent her visage from being revealed.
Jane staggered backward. The woman was definitely younger than Angelia, probably in her 20s, short and curvy. Her plump, saucy lips dropped open in shock. She fell to her knees, quaking.
“Who-who are you?” Her voice was neither the brassy drawl nor the simper that Geela had expected. It was a pathetic whine and Geela was starting to wonder why Barney associated with such irritating women.
“Does the name Ja’Eel Scilatia bring anything to mind?” Her own voice now was a higher, crueler sound, one that might better accompany a haughty queen. This was among her favorite costumes.
“Oh dammit. Oh kitten of heaven protect me.”
Hidden behind her mask, Geela’s nose wrinkled. “Then you know why I’m here.”
“Yes.” The woman fell onto her face, a position so submissive that it soothed Geela’s ego a bit. “If I had known, I never would have let him stay. As soon as he told me who his ex-wife was, I gave him the boot.”
“You gave him the-” Geela caught herself before swearing. “So he isn’t here anymore.”
“N-no m’lady. I kicked him out as soon as I knew.” Jane peered up at her from the ground.
Geela sighed. “Your integrity is commendable,” she said, her voice flat. “If irritating. Would you happen to know where he is now?”
“No. I apologize, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think to ask. I was outraged. I didn’t even know he’d been married when we—” the woman stopped at the poison in Geela’s eyes. “Oh forgive me, dark lady, I didn’t know! I didn’t know! Oh sweet Purrmow, God of Heaven, protect me.”
So, this was another of Barney’s little toys. This woman’s common sense and bare-bones integrity, however, now stood in Geela’s way. Why had Jane’s sole display of moral fiber spurred her to banish Barney?
“So you enabled a dirt bound sod to betray his mistress? It seems that alone is worth punishment if you cannot provide me with something more.” Geela was lashing out needlessly and she knew it but it just felt good.
Jane wailed. “He didn’t tell me he’d been married til he arrived! I didn’t know!”
Geela resisted the urge to massage her temples. “Did he give you any hint?”
Jane sobbed freely now. “He said that he was seeking out a figure from your past. One whose name you would remember well and quake in fear of. I can only imagine a queen of your stature would have many such enemies.”
“You think that someone of my stature would have many enemies that leave me quaking in fear?”
Just when Geela thought the woman couldn’t grow more pitiful, she began beating her back in a sign of some kind of penance.
“Alright, no, stop that. That’s not helping anything.” Geela’s mind turned from the weak-willed waif to a more pressing concern. One that you would remember well and quake in fear of. Regardless of what Jane thought, there were precious few that fit that bill.
Could it be Noirela? Geela shook her head sharply, banishing the thought. Even letting her mind slip to the fiend’s full name was enough to rake her body with shivers. Noire. It could be Noire. Oh please don’t let it be Noire.
Jane had quieted a bit by now, still whimpering. Geela really ought to curse her, find some way to leave her mark, lest the woman boast at surviving unscathed…
“I hope that you remember this time, this place, well. For the next month, you will be plagued by its smell.”
It wasn’t much, given the pie shop was only slightly worse than the rest of her neighborhood, but it was enough to make the woman choke back another sob. “Oh please no.”
“Oi, what’s wrong the smell of me pies!”
Geela turned, forgetting all about the storekeeper. The man crossed his arms, apron stained with any number of unnervingly unidentifiable liquids. He shifted uneasily under her gaze.
“Some folks like ‘em, is all I meant. I can leave you with one if you’re interested?”
Geela opened her mouth for a moment, trying to find a way to word exactly why this was a terrible time to push a product. Then she closed it. There was no fitting punishment for this man. His lot in life was enough.
“I take my leave of this place.” Geela strode to the door, opening it with a flourish.
She walked down the road until she was sufficiently out of eyesight. Then she ducked into an alleyway and changed back to her simple dress, minus the red hair and makeup. Alone now, except for a few rats, Geela leaned her head back against the wall. Really, if Barney did reach out to Noire, it’s possible, likely even, that the void fiend would fully consume his soul, feed it to its spawn, before Barney got a single favor out of the deal. After all, Barney wasn’t particularly strong, strength-wise, constitution-wise, intelligence-wise, wisdom-wise… He was charismatic, apparently, but that was it. And he was old now. Unlike Geela, he never stopped aging. Not that Geela had ever cared. Looks mattered when it came to her or someone whose visage she had to compete with, but otherwise, it was a nonissue. Certainly a nonissue with spouses.
No, it’s just as possible that Barney sought out one of her long defeated foes that had given her a run for her money. Hell, maybe he summoned up old Berta and died in a pool of his own blood. The image made her smile. This new information called for a reconvening at her castle. She could call up some of her minions and have them keep an eye on her past enemies. Of course, she’d have to get in touch with Berta, but the two had parted on alright terms, if a showdown with a barely twenty-year-old apprentice, mad with power, that blew up half the academy could be considered good terms. Still, Berta hadn’t really been involved, so maybe that conversation could be civil.
Geela spent the rest of her walk back to the Broken Drum pondering over which ‘old friends’ she needed to ‘catch up’ with.
She found the suite in some form of disarray. Darkos must have taken her advice to ‘get out of the suite once or twice’ because there were books everywhere and even more pieces of parchment, strewn with messy ink. Darkos lay on the floor, snoring loudly, face resting on a long sheet of drying ink, stains all over his face. Sympathy and irritation battled each other in Geela’s mind before she sighed and began stacking the books. The words ‘alerion?’ and ‘god of peace’ and ‘healing’, ‘prayers’, ‘temples’ were scrawled all over the room.
She’d just finished the first stack when Darkos woke with a jolt. “Alerion?”
“Not here, I’m afraid.” She dusted her hands off, looking at the cleaner room. “You wanna finish picking up this mess? I found Jane Arlington, by the way.”
He nodded, sniffing and rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, sorry, I was trying to induce a state of—wait you said you found her?”
Geela smiled, straightening her shoulders. “Yes. I’m going to go take a shower, clean off some of the swamp smell, and then I’ll tell you what I found. Just… clean this up while I’m in there and put the kettle on, won’t you?”
The mess continued inside the washroom. Geela stepped in, face contorted in displeasure, looking at more papers and ink spilled. There were even words and runes and little prayer verses scribbled on the walls. She kicked the door shut behind her and looked up at the mirror, to see what damage the humidity had done to her hair.
What she saw froze her in terror. Not her hair, not the mess in the bathroom, not even the sweat stains under her arms.
No, what froze her were the words written on the back of the door.
NOIRELA
Her chest seized and for a moment she was struck breathless.
“Darkos!” she shrieked. “Darkos what the hell are you doing? Get in here right now!”
The room spun a bit as she stared at the reflection of the door, of the name of her once loathed Patron staring her straight in the eyes. She could feel the void inside her shifting to greet it and shut her eyes, blinking rapidly.
“Geela?” Darkos opened the door and for a moment the cursed name was out of her vision. “I’m sorry. Back at the temple, we’d induce frenzied states of studying so I kind of lost myself.”
“And that spurred you to write cursed words across this room?” The words held so much venom that Darkos’s face crumpled in shame.
“I’m not sure what you mean. They’re just verses-”
She slammed the door, never breaking eye contact with Darkos. “Tell me what that is doing on the door.”
He looked at the door and then back at her. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m not surprised. Understanding has been the absolute worse thing you were ever good at. But scrawling that into the door, when you know my history, when you know—you know—I don’t even know how you know that word-”
“Geela, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She took several deep breaths, grabbed the sides of his cheeks, and forced him to look at the door.
“That…” her words died down in her throat.
On the back of the door read the word ALERION.
The two stared at it. Then back at each other.
Then, slowly, to the mirror.
NOIRELA
Back to the door, back to each other, back to the reflection.
Back to each other.
“Darkos you are so fucked.”
To all of you who theorized that there was something up with 'Alerion' (especially godofwoof who called that it had something to do with his name)...
Yup! XD
Next Chapter
As always, huge shout out to vren, my beta reader. He's responsible for more than just line edits, he helps me keep my plot straight and my characters developing. If you like this story, you'll love Fractured Song, his serial!
Love y'all.
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Roadside Reality 4: On Stranger Tides

I had way too much fun making this tower as rich as I could imagine.
Back / Next
Roadside Reality chapter 4
Another phase of exploration had begun and Styx had put in orders for more archaeologist teams from the Empire to man this project. Teams from all other sites of the exploratory fleet except mars had been reassigned to Earth so they could keep the current rate of exploration before they’d have to slow down and wait for a supply chain to come it with more people and equipment.
Until then, teams on Earth still had a decent capability to investigate the tower interior. When the Princess entered, she’d had a ring of aurora-like lights circle her every step on the crystal floor, which everyone soon adjusted to. There was still a shaking suspicion by teams in the tower that they were constantly being watched though. On the Princess’ orders, the expedition progressed into the tower, documenting everything. The first room, the entrance hall was a massive ball room with portraits of sweeping landscapes and stellar conquests, ebony furniture, and a trio of sweeping staircases. Two were symmetrical and led up to another hall linking into what was so far believed to be a network of decorated hallways that spread throughout the tower.
Teams spent hours in the halls, exploring and mapping their rough position inside the structures, eventually returning a marginally more comprehensive map of the internal layout. They found that 4 elevators brought them to another luxury level, but between the ground floors halls and the upstairs halls, which were elevated by about 3km, there was a massive currently inaccessible area that held no indication of what was inside. There was another elevator shaft inside the centre of the ground floors that would likely lead there, or elsewhere.
The tower had become much more active, with magnetometers on people reading large spikes of activity when they were moved fast inside the tower. Other people reported shimmering visions in the corners of their eyes. The tower opened to the Princess, but some on the teams were wondering if she just got lucky with some fluke in old technology.
To Asteria, the area for new discoveries was so large that it was difficult to figure out how to be on the front lines again, with every one of the hundreds of halls being a possible revelation.
Most halls were carpeted, but they were all made of a misty quartz that reacted to them. She wanted to say they were just pressure sensors combined with grids of LEDs under the flooring, but something about them seemed too... richly detailed to be just a grid of LEDs. The colour was too fine, like an actual purple instead of the purple that is a composite of red, green and blue.
Zelus had been dragging her all around the structure, doing an inglorious, if necessary, job. They were setting up electrical and magnetic monitors across every single crack in the walls and tiling gap they could find, of which there were few. Asteria was just constantly running back to the door camp to grab another cable to feed down 12 corridors. The idea was to wire them to avoid static interference, and use the monitors to get a real time feed on electrical flow and magnetic fluctuation across the structure. That data would then be included in the overall computer records of everything that happened during the expedition. The drives this would all be stored on would almost be heavier by the time they were done here.
She doubted she would find out mysteries of the universe personally from where she was now though. She saw something move in the corner of her vision and she stopped again. Whatever it was, it was blue. She’d seen it before as well. When it’s on her left, it’s red, when it’s on her right, it’s blue.
It annoyed her at this point. She was thinking the auroras might be holograms or something, she’d seen sci-fi were that was possible. But that wasn’t her problem right now. She needed to get this cable to Zelus before her greeting was a bollocking.
--
Styx watched the team go about their various recordings while she contacted her staff connected to a part of the ring that could fit her docked battleships. Another 3 days had passed and the rudimentary ‘time breaker’ as it was called arrived on a drone shuttle that was intercepted by one of her corvettes docked at mars. At that point she found out that the administrators that coordinated the reassignment of staff to the Earth teams had sent the staff that knew how to reassemble the time breaker to Earth.
Rather than go through the bother of giving the man a mouthful of abuse that would take 10 minutes to traverse space to the poor sod, she simply acknowledged it and told him to send the machine to earth instead. She dropped the panel onto the ebony table she sat at and rubbed her eyes. Corrective skin surgeries meant she didn’t have any natural blemishes on her skin, meaning she never used makeup unless she had to make a public appearance and look pretty. The last glance she caught in the reflection of the panel before it fell was shadows under her eyes, not over them.
She needed sleep, but didn’t want to leave the tower for her battleship’s private quarters. Maybe this tower had an excessive bedroom somewhere befitting a noble like her. She looked through the records of the mapped areas, and pondered for a moment. The lower floors had far too many people, upper area is a must. She spotted a particular room in the current map and zoomed in, with the room being automatically linked to a series of images taken from inside it. She opened on up on her panel.
A giant glass one-way-window was the outer wall of the suite. It was 3 km up from the ground, giving her a better view than her place back at Olympia over the surrounding terrain. The leadup to it was great too. Each of the hall areas had 5 floors each with each room being fit for THE presiding Imperial Monarch. But the symmetrical layout of the floor planning put emphasis on the leadup to the main doors for the opposing main suites. The floor planning just told her to go to this room; no better way to drive it home that she was important than taking the fanciest room in the fanciest structure on the most famous planet in the galaxy. Each and every one of her brothers and sisters would be so envious when she could brag without even fully covering the details
She pointed it out to her guard, who was also the slightest split-second longer to react.
“I’ll need some rest, you too by the looks of it. Get the night-guard planet side and have them meet up in this room.” She stated, flicking her panel display to the guard, who took several looks at it, then nodded. He put in a number of commands into his tablet, then followed after her, carrying her extensive luggage.
She spent 15 minutes going across the upper floors trying to find the exact path to the top. Normally back in the castle at home there would be a servant that would know their way around the entire castle for each royal in the building, but then again, she didn’t have the time to bring along her favourite chef on the trip. She eventually got an idea of how to find her way around the floor plans using the hall structure to guess where she was. Location services weren’t up yet for this level. It was worth these delays to find this amazing bedroom. The most intrusive bit of all was that there were dust trails from dirty exploration team boots and cables laid along the floors to map what had been explored and what hadn’t.
A necessary evil if she was to secure this planet and its riches, to put herself in history books with a long and prosperous reign. A reign in which she lived long and governed over the greatest home the Empire could ever have. Guiding the new path that the empire would not, could not be denied by any impudent rebellion or greedy subjects with the strength of true precursor technology at their backs.
She made her way through the pompously cushioned living room of the suite. Queen’s suite, she preferred. She would call it that to herself from now on. She reached the main bedroom with a luxurious room with a crystal-clear faintly glowing quartz floor held over a liquid that cast the lazy ripples of water diffracted light to the ceiling. The bedframe was made of an actual wood, she presumed it was a local species of tree. The bed itself made her question her decision for a moment.
It was made of ebony. The bed. Was made. Of ebony. Ebony blanket. Ebony mattress.
Styx reached out to touch it, she hesitated for a moment; afraid she might feel it again. She caught herself fearing anyone but her siblings and pushed forward anyway. The moment she touched the bed, she felt her hand jolt at the course surface, like sandstone. Then it immediately transformed itself into a silk covered quilt, a fluffy pillow, and a fabric covered foam mattress. The remaining mass of ebony then realigned itself to readjusting the joints of the wooden frame to make space for her horns. All this happened mutely over the course of a second. She almost howled in fright, but she didn’t want her guard to come barging into the room. She held her yelp in her throat and touched the bed again. Now the bed was made out of what it looked like.
It took her a while to comfortably sit down on it, never mind tear her gaze from it in case it did anything else. But she felt it was now relatively inert and sat down on it. By Home Beyond did those precursors know how to make a good bed. It was the comfiest thing she had ever sat into, as the foam forming the mattress gave way and moulded itself to accompany her. She looked out the windowed wall now. The sun was about to set for her, she glanced down onto the land at the base of the tower and how the sun was already hidden from it by the horizon. Her sun eventually set and she settled into the bed, the pillow giving her a sense of sleepiness she hadn’t known she’d felt since she first arrived.
--
Pandora was gazing drearily out of the Exploratory flagship, the glass wall of her office having the LED screens display what the face of The Earth looked like past the ring. The ring’s outer hull was a bit dull to look at after a while, and it was so voluminous that even though her flagship was 700 metres long with an internal rotating habitat for 0.3g, the ship was a speck held by a wire in scale to the earth. A chime of more reports and requests kicked her back into the flow of work.
She gestured a swiping motion to the glass wall and read over the state of investigation, scanning each word for anything that might look like insight into the nature of this system. Nothing.
50 or so notifications since were other teams requesting to be reassigned to Earth and saying there was nothing to find at their sites, with the absolute protection of the fields. She agreed wholeheartedly and quickly sent a message to her paper-pushers to reassign all other teams to Earth.
Then she started to sift through the reports that had come from however long she had overslept. That tower was differently decorated, but it was filled with a treasure trove of new cultural discoveries that kept all her xeno-anthropologists ecstatic. Pictures of the paintings of the supposed precursor had a variety of opinions across the camp as to whether that was what the precursors looked like, or if they are simply another creation of the precursors.
It split even the researchers that were metaphorically tearing apart these paintings down the middle. Some claimed that their... dull form was the most logical thing they could’ve descended from, that maybe all the species today were interbreeding of this probably wide-spread precursor. To that the other camp pointed out that every single sentient species in the galaxy shared at least 99% of their DNA with each other, pointing out how many nines came after the decimal point.
From what she could see, there seemed to something in the conversation that neither side wanted to confront, but she wasn’t able to puzzle out what it was. That would have to be talked about later.
Teams had charted large sections of the internal layout, which was designed with some form of inactive ebony as far as readings of the material went. This stuff was deemed safe to touch as well, with that cocky princess sitting down and sipping a drink when she found a table that suited her in the entrance hall. Since she had slept, some supply teams had taken the initiative to dispatch mobile LiDAR scanners and personal positioning systems that up until now had been used to chart the ring halls. Progress was speeding up far more now, but charting wasn’t answering any mysteries in relation to who built this, how and why.
If that didn’t come soon, that Princess would have Pandora’s head to buy herself time.
The ground level had 4 elevators that led to the cardinal directions, exactly 5 halls away from the cardinally directed tower doors that led to a smaller, more densely rich set of 5 levels, the uppermost of which the Princess had settled into. Given that the tower tapered gradually, the area of the upper floors was noticeably easier to chart. Not without some royal grumblings of course.
The most curious thing was that fifth elevator in the chart reports. On the fifth floor of the ground level, there was a fifth elevator in the exact centre of the structure. It followed into the ceiling, leading people to believe this was the access to the unexplored median levels.
The elevator itself was a break different from the hall aesthetic. It was made entirely from a cube of pure ebony. Blue waves were observed to pulse slowly from underneath it in patterns that were proposed to be luminescent fluid inside a previously observed porous layer.
It had a freeze field protecting it. One explorer narrowly avoided being the first living casualty of the field when their glove become frozen from touching the surface, which somehow didn’t instantly freeze the person and the rest of the clothes and equipment on the person. Every single circuit of every device on him had been found later to be burnt to a crisp.
Portions of the teams were starting to inhabit the areas the expedition deemed fully explored instead of the tents, but they didn’t reach far in. People moved in after finding the beds transformed from an inert ebony to a material that was as perceptibly soft as possible to whoever touched the bed first.
Another report chimed in, adding to the virtual stack. Pandora opened it in a tab on the wall, read it, then looked at the past incoming orbital trajectories. Abruptly she ran down the path to the space elevator; she told the admin team at the bridge to take over until further notice. The tab was still open in her office, a private message from the researcher Zelus.
“This is Zelus, during my duties today across the upper floors, I spotted the Princess roaming the halls. I overheard her saying she is going to try and break the freeze field around the fifth elevator with that time breaker. I don’t know if you should stop her, but you should be there when something happens. Over.”
Okay, I swear, reveal is next chapter. Give me feedback, tell me what's cool. Cya in the next chapter.
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red quilt sets queen video

Get great deals on Red Queen Size Quilts, Bedspreads & Coverlets. Spend this time at home to refresh your home decor style! Shop at eBay.com and enjoy Fast & Free shipping on many items! Explore our selection of Bedding and Bedding Sets Queen & Quilts and Coverlets on Bedding and Bedding Sets at Hayneedle. Home Office Edit: Up to 30% off. Upholstery ... This set features a quilt and matching shams in bold red, green, and yellow floral fabric. It's 100... Quick View. Reversible Solace Quilt Set by HiEnd Accents. Starting At ... Madison Park Quebec Queen Size Quilt Bedding Set - Red, Damask – 3 Piece Bedding Quilt Coverlets – Ultra Soft Microfiber Bed Quilts Quilted Coverlet. STYLE - Modern Bohemian cozy bedspread set so you can update your bedroom decor with a charming modern classic boho style with a hint of casual design lifestyle. Solid rich color of sophisticated double sided quilting bohemian pattern ... Product Title Somerset Home Solid Color Bed Quilt, Full/Queen, Burgundy Average Rating: ( 3.7 ) out of 5 stars 276 ratings , based on 276 reviews Current Price $13.86 $ 13 . 86 - $46.85 $ 46 . 85 Buy Red Queen Quilts at Macys.com! Browse our great low prices & discounts on the best Red Queen bedspreads. FREE SHIPPING AVAILABLE! ... Chambers Quilt Sets $240.00 - 260.00. Sale $143.99 - 155.99. Extra 20% off use: VDAY Extra 20% off use: VDAY. With offer $115.19 - 124.79. Earn bonus points NOW! ... Get great deals on Red Queen Size Comforters & Sets. Spend this time at home to refresh your home decor style! Shop at eBay.com and enjoy Fast & Free shipping on many items! A red quilt on a queen or king bed will be the focus of the room, and the bright colors and patterns will draw visitors’ eyes. Choose soft or deep red for a subdued and relaxed look, or amp things up with bright shapes or contrasting stripes. Wayfair has red quilt sets in queen, king, and california king sizes. Hannah Linen Quilt Sets Queen 4 Piece Down Alternative Design Bedding Set with Shams and Decorative Pillow - Plush Microfiber Fill - Reversible Quilt Coverlet Bedspread Set (Queen, Purple Vidara) 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,040. $26.95 $ 26. 95. Get it as soon as Thu, Feb 11. FREE Shipping by Amazon. Shop for red queen bedding sets online at Target. Choose from contactless Same Day Delivery, Drive Up and more. Tempcore Quilt,3 Piece Queen Quilt Set, Microfiber Lightweight Soft Bedspread Coverlet for All Season,Full/Queen Printed Quilt(1 Quilt,2 Shams) 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,627 $13.99 $ 13 . 99 $42.99 $42.99

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red quilt sets queen

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