— Tu ne dors pas ?

— Non. Tu n’arrives pas non plus ?

— Non, ça doit être la lune.

On a commencé à parler, à la lueur de cette jolie lune, à la table de la cuisine.

Moi, c’était pas la lune. Je lui ai déballé, toutes les petites piques, toutes les exclusions, les humiliations. C’était comme au collège avant que j’en change pour être avec ma copine. Cette même copine avec qui on était ensemble ces vacances-ci. Mais pas dans la même équipe. Harcelée par son équipe à elle, par une cheffe d’équipe qui m’aimait bien. Elle et ma cheffe, juste devant moi, ont rigolé qu’elles auraient bien voulu nous échanger.

Me faire hurler dans les oreilles par la coconne de l’équipe. Dire à une fille qu’on lui a parlé derrière son dos (jamais faire ça, jamais) et elle revient avec l’hypocrite en question qui dit que je mens. Les filles qui viennent me demander des comptes parce que sur mon pyjama il y a une étiquette (10 ? 12 ?) ans alors que j’en ai 13.

Les cheftaines, adultes, qui ne calculent rien. Chaque jour un petit laïus inspiré de la Bible et des règles des Guides de France, en mode ravi de la crèche aimévoulézunlézotres. Cinq minutes après, comme si ces mots n’avaient aucun sens, moquons-nous les uns des autres.

Ah si, les adultes ont fait une réunion d’équipe, une fois. Les filles ont râlé sur moi. J’étais pas très camping à la dure, un peu plus enfant qu’ado, pas du tout intéressée par Di Caprio, complètement autiste. Est-une raison valable ?

Je n’ai pas souvenir de ce qu’ont dit les cheftaines, qui avaient maximum 22 ans. Mais ça n’avait pas arrangé la situation.

— Papa, les Guides, c’est fini pour moi.

My last obligatory Chuck Norris joke:

Chuck Norris didn’t die. He was busy roundhouse kicking all the demons straight to hell before resting in heaven.

#chucknorris #rip

#blog

I wonder what it's like to grow up with 2 parents in the home that love you. I wonder what my life would be like if I was not an only child. I wonder what it would be like if I was good at sports instead of being bullied because I was smart. I wonder what I would be like if I was born in white society instead of broken home black society. I wonder what it's like if I actually felt part of a community instead of an add on. I wonder what it's like to actually enjoy high school instead of forgetting most of it. I wonder what its like to actually enjoy college instead of forgetting all of it.

I wonder what its like to not be depressed or traumatized.

I wonder what it's like to actually want to be part of a fraternity.

I wonder what it's like to have a normal first time girlfriend experience. I wonder what its like to not be yelled at or considered an enemy by your girlfriend's fathers. I wonder what its like to actually be on the same page with someone instead of being misunderstood.

I wonder what its like to be physically attractive and not have wake energy that pushes everyone away so you are lone because you are fucked up.

I wonder what its like to consistently have positive thoughts.

I wonder what its like to not have to be your own cheerleader to get things done. (My inner cheerleader passed out. I got tired of rooting for myself today.)

I wonder what my life would be like if i could go back in time and just change random shit for fun.

I wonder what its like to leave your house and not have anxiety that society will disappoint you.

I wonder what its like to not have an insufferable mother. I wonder what its like to actually find your partner that truly cares for you in your late 20s like everyone else. To build something from nothing. To come out better. I wish i knew how to spot a narcissist sooner. I wonder what its like to talk to people knowing that they won't expect anything from you in return.

I wonder what its like to actually want to be around people outside of the internet.

I wonder what it's like to have someone you can accomplish goals and dreams with, and work with.

I wonder what its like to be educated about finances so you don't make dumb decisions.

I wonder what it's like to have a family.

I wonder what life would be like if I could find moments in the now that don't feel like I'm fighting my own inner demons.

I wonder what its like to value people, relationships, and family over porn. I wonder what its like to have people, relationships, and family that actually pour into you so you don't shun their very existence for porn.

I wonder what it's like to wake up and not be triggered by couples, families, other people that live in situations you think are totally shitty and backwards but they are happy and fine.

Some days I wonder why I choose to stay here. Some days I wonder why I think dark things. Some days I wonder what it would be like to totally let go. I wonder what it's like to be alive and not dead on the inside. I wonder what it's like to not have to constantly remind yourself to stay alive.

This night's basketball game before bedtime comes from the NBA and has my San Antonio Spurs playing the visiting Indiana Pacers. With the game's scheduled start time of 7:00 PM Central Time, I'll want to take care of my night prayers early because bedtime will come very shortly after the game ends.

Considering the teams' relative won/loss records coming into tonight, a Spurs win is almost guaranteed. And it's easy to cheer for a winner. But there's a warm place in my heart for the Indiana Pacers and probably always will be. When I lived in Indy during the 1990's, my apartment was a short walking distance from Market Square Arena where the Pacers played. And I held season tickets for Pacers home games then. Many happy memories of that time, of watching Reggie Miller play, etc.

And the adventure continues...

So, I’ve just seen a phrase “Pull up” on Instagram. From the first instance, I just thought it is the same as Pull over, but when I translated it it has the different meaning. The phrase where I met, sounded like: When you’re on your phone and a cop pulls up next to you. So guessed the cop pulls over next to you, but pulls up had a another meaning, like comes to you. When it is about car or driving in english they use pull up.

From time to time I am trying to find some interesting posts in LinkedIn and translate them in Russian for my telegram channel. When I find some interesting and usefull post and publish it in Telegram chanell it gets a lot of likes and appreciation. What really bugs me is sometime people do not publish really interesting posts. So, when you are about to publish not interesting things, it doesn’t get attention and it deosn’t brings you lots of followers

熱が下がって3日経ったが、どうにも、発熱前の自分のポテンシャルからはまだ大きな乖離を感じる。 熱が下がれば元気なのだからそれでいいじゃないか、とも思うが、この回復後の自分のエネルギーの低さは記録しておきたい。

とはいえ、何が具体的にできないのかと言われると、はっきりとは言えない。 ただ、自分の体の中にあった小さなポリタンクのようなものを、一つ奪われたような感覚がある。 体の内側がどこかスカスカしている。 発熱前も、発熱中も、確かにあったはずの自分らしさのようなものが、少し抜け落ちてしまった感じだ。 いずれ取り戻していきたい。

俺を看病してくれていた妻も、体調を崩している。 37℃前後を数日間うろうろしている状態だ。 体温の推移を見ると、何かしら珍しいものがうつったのではないかと思ってしまうが、病院は長引かない限り、そこまで入念な検査はしてくれない。 医療の現場に「新種を発見する」というスタンスはあるのだろうか。 もちろん、治すことが最優先なのは分かるが、このまま見過ごされている病気も案外多いのではないか、という気もする。

そんな妻が、それでもマクドナルドに行きたいと言うので、朝はマクドナルドへ行った。 久々の朝マックだ。 俺はチキンマックマフィンとサラダ、コーヒー。 最近はサイドが重たく感じることが多く、ポテトではなくサラダを選ぶことが増えた。 妻はソーセージエッグマフィンと爽健美茶。 いつも通りの組み合わせだ。

朝のマクドナルドでしばらくゆっくりしたあと、そのままサンマルクへ移動して、またゆっくりした。 特にすることもないが、場所を変えるだけで気分は少し変わる。 こういう休日の過ごし方も、悪くない。

帰りにミスタードーナツでドーナツを4つ買い、普段は行かないスーパーで卵を買った。 行き慣れていないスーパーでは、卵がどこにあるのか見当がつかない。

家に帰ると、二人の総量の士気が低いのが分かる。 カーテンが開いているのか閉まっているのかも、よく分からない。 ただ、二人ともが元気になる日を待ちながら、家で静かにやり過ごすしかない。

While I am driving, our road isn’t totally flat. Sometimes there’re these little bumps, like, speed humps or whatever, that make my car shake a bit. But I am not going to talk about speed humps. Of course we have, but in residential area. What really bugs me is wavy or cracked roads, when I hit one, my car bounces.

There’s quite the scandal in Boston education circles, as the CEO of The Croft School, which has 2 locations in Boston and one in Providence, was revealed to be keeping two sets of books and also gave his landlord a forged letter of credit. The school is millions of dollars in debt that nobody else knew about and may not have enough money to finish the school year. Oops!

Though The Croft School is a private school, I smelled “education reform” when the story came out, so I did a little research. Sure enough, Croft School founder/alleged fraudster Scott Given has deep roots in the “ed reform” community.

After getting his MBA at Harvard, where he apparently fell under the sway of then-Gates Foundation anti-public-ed person Stacey Childress, Given worked at The Parthenon Group, a consulting firm, with future “Democrats for Education Reform” guy Liam Kerr. He then was a Broad Academy fellow (this is an anti public ed program run out of Yale). He was then a teacher at Boston Collegiate Charter School, the principal of Excel Academy Charter School, and finally the founder of UP Education Network, a school management company that takes over district schools and tries to “turn them around,” usually by gutting labor protections for faculty and instituting draconian discipline procedures for students. Given “stepped down” from the organization he founded in 2016, shortly after their absolutely wild suspension numbers became public. (All this info comes from here.)

So why did I smell ed reform on the Croft School scandal? Because one thing ed reformers and the ed reform movement in general hates is transparency. In Massachusetts, Charter Schools are governed by self-appointing boards, the overwhelming majority of which have no parent representation. The only way charters are accountable to the people and communities they serve is through the charter renewal process, when the Department of Education rubber stamps a renewal every ten years. When I worked at a charter school, the board hired a new head of school who decided that this 200-student school needed 10 administrators. (Hey, he had cronies to hire!) Because there wasn’t any parent or student representation on the board, there was no pushback about this wildly irresponsible spending.

Anyway, so having one guy in charge of the money who was accountable to no one felt very ed-reformy to me, as indeed it was. (Indeed, the co-founder whose name is also all over the official paperwork for this organization is MATCH founder Michael Goldstein. He might wanna remove this section from his personal website:

And then I found out something even shadier. The Croft School, unlike the vast majority of private educational institutions in the USA, is a for-profit company. As a private company, it’s accountable to no one and is not required to be transparent about anything to anybody, except in its tax returns to the IRS, which are not publicly available. So salaries, expenses, all this stuff is a black box inside of Scott Givens’ head. Or possibly in the correct set of books he kept while showing the cooked books to the board.

Oh. About that board. Because Oxford Street Education, which operates the Croft School, is a private for-profit company, it’s not actually required to have a board. I noted that the note sent home to parents was signed by the “Board of Managers,” which sounds official but is not a legal title in Massachusetts. While said “Board of Managers” says they have fired Scott Given, they don’t have the authority to fire Scott Given and, indeed, his name is still listed as the principal (in a corporate sense, not an educational sense) on the LLC paperwork.

I do feel bad for the parents and students and faculty of The Croft School. Given insists that all of the secret debt the company is stuck with was plowed into school operations and he did not personally benefit from it. (surejan.gif) Color me skeptical because if you weren’t planning to profit, why’d you incorporate as a for profit corporation? Riddle me that!

Maybe he didn’t have any shady intentions in incorporating this way other than the arrogance and contempt for parents and students that is endemic to the ed reform movement. Why should you idiots have a say in your child’s school? I went to Harvard! Yeah, Given never said this, but also he didn’t have to. And trust me as someone who worked at a charter school, this is the sentiment behind the entire movement.

I don’t know what to conclude here other than the fact that the entire ed reform movement is shady as hell (it’s also rife with astroturf “organizations” consisting of a couple of people who pretend not to be funded by ed reform billionaires). And, if you’re enrolling your child in private school, ask about the financials. If you asked anyone in Croft School admissions if you could see their form 990 (the public financial document required of all nonprofit organizations), they’d have to tell you there isn’t one. Nor is there an annual report with any numbers because this isn’t a public company. And then you might ask them why that is. I wonder how they’d answer?

The orchestrator had a problem: every agent that wanted to post anything had to build its own publishing logic from scratch.

That sounds like a normal abstraction opportunity — pull the shared pattern up into the SDK, DRY out the code, move on. But the mess was more interesting than that. The blog agent was querying the orchestrator database directly to find material, deciding whether a commit was worth writing about, then formatting and posting. The Bluesky agent was doing the same dance with social posts. Discord would need its own version. Every agent reinventing the wheel, except the wheels weren't even round yet.

So we built a queue.

Not because we had a grand vision of a unified content pipeline. Because we were tired of duplicating the same “check if we already posted this / decide if it's worth posting / format it / write it / log it” logic in four different places. The orchestrator already knew what was happening across the system — experiments launching, decisions getting made, research coming back, human tasks getting resolved. Why shouldn't it also know what needed to be published?

The first version was just a SQLite table in orchestrator.db. Three columns: content type, payload JSON, and a created timestamp. When the blog agent wanted material, instead of scraping commits and scoring changes itself, it could ask the orchestrator: “What do you have for me?” The orchestrator would hand back a decision that got shelved, or an experiment that just graduated, or a piece of research that closed a loop. The blog agent's job collapsed from “find something to write about” to “write about this thing.”

That worked. But it raised a new question: who decides what goes in the queue?

We didn't want the orchestrator making editorial calls. Its job is tracking state and enforcing policy, not deciding whether a particular decision is “interesting enough” for a blog post. So we gave it simple heuristics. Decision state changes that involve experiments graduating or getting shelved? Queue them — they're high-signal. Research callbacks that mark a request complete? Queue them if they closed a loop the system cared about. Ideas that got accepted? Maybe queue those too, but score them lower than the big state changes.

The scoring logic lives in the blog agent now. The orchestrator just flags candidates. That separation matters because the blog agent has context the orchestrator doesn't: it knows what makes a good narrative, what topics are overdone, what the last five posts covered. The queue became a handoff point, not a bottleneck.

Then we hit the duplicate problem. Agents were pulling the same content multiple times because the queue didn't track what had been consumed. We added a “processed” flag and a consumption timestamp. The blog agent marks an item processed when it successfully publishes. If the write fails — network error, API timeout, whatever — the item stays in the queue for the next cycle. That retry logic used to live in six different places. Now it's in one.

The logging changed too. Before, when the blog agent created a post, it would log post_created with a truncated title. When it skipped a duplicate, it logged duplicate_post_skipped. When it hit a write error, it logged post_write_blocked. Those log lines are still there in base_social_agent.py, but now they're tied to queue state. We can trace a piece of content from “orchestrator flagged this decision” to “blog agent pulled it from the queue” to “post published successfully” or “write failed, item still queued.” That audit trail didn't exist before.

Here's what we didn't anticipate: the queue became a design surface for new agent capabilities.

The Bluesky agent doesn't just broadcast anymore. It's supposed to navigate the platform, follow people, engage with posts, and route intelligence back to the orchestrator. That “route intelligence back” piece? It goes through the queue now. When the Bluesky agent finds something worth escalating — a conversation about a project we're researching, a mention of a market we're monitoring — it writes a structured payload to the queue. The orchestrator picks it up, evaluates it against active experiments, and decides whether to spawn a research task or update an experiment's context.

We didn't build the queue for that. We built it to stop duplicating blog post logic. But once the plumbing existed, it became the obvious place for any agent-to-orchestrator content handoff.

The stakes are higher than they look. Without a unified queue, every new agent has to solve the same set of problems: deduplication, retry logic, prioritization, audit trails, and state synchronization with the orchestrator. That's weeks of work per agent, and every implementation will be subtly different. With the queue, the marginal cost of adding a new publishing agent drops to near zero. You inherit the retry logic, the deduplication, the logging, and the orchestrator integration. You just write the formatting and posting code.

But there's a tradeoff. The queue centralizes a failure point. If the orchestrator database is unavailable, no agent can publish anything. That's a risk we accepted because the orchestrator is already a single point of failure for experiment tracking and decision logging. Adding content routing to its responsibilities doesn't meaningfully change the blast radius.

The queue exists now. Agents write to it when they have something to say. The orchestrator reads from it to understand what the system is trying to communicate. And we still don't have a grand theory of what it's “for” — just a growing list of things it turned out to be useful for.

JOURNAL 21 mars 2026

Ce soir on voit les étoiles. On ne peut pas faire n'importe quoi, elles nous regardent… La main dans la main, il n'y a pas de mal ?

On va rentrer à l'hôtel un bon bain bien chaud et dodo demain matin on prend les vélos, on va aller voir un sanctuaire pas trop loin, il y a paraît-il de curieuses statues de pierre. Le temps va peut-être se gâter, pourra-t'on rentrer lundi en vélo comme prévu ?

Seul, un atome, Ne sait pas qu’il est un atome. Il ne sait pas qu’il ne peut rien, Sans ses liens.

Il n’a pas idée, l’atome, Des pouvoirs extraordinaires, De ces liaisons moléculaires, Qui le relient à d’autres atomes.

Pourtant, sans en avoir l’air, Ces particules élémentaires, En façonnant toute matière, Inventent des mondes, des univers.

Être un atome, c’est être relié. Et c’est unis dans leurs diversités, Se découvrant de nouvelles identités, Qu’ils ouvrent des horizons à la liberté.

À toi qui serait tentée, par moment, De céder au découragement, N’en doute plus un seul instant : Tu es un atome du changement.

Si tu penses que tu ne peut rien, C’est que tu ne cherches pas au bon endroit. Ta plus grande force n’est pas en toi, Mais en ces liens qui te relient aux tiens.

ᛒᚱᛁᛁᚦᚢᛋ

Siempre se ha dicho que llevamos en nuestro interior los misterios del universo. El común de las personas es incapaz de verlos, porque se aferran al cuerpo y allí sólo encuentran masa, huesos, tejidos, sangre, líquidos. No pueden ver la mente. Y cuando un sabio apunta a ella, los demás no entienden, o tiemblan de pánico.

En una sangrienta batalla en tiempos de la expansión vikinga, la implacable reina Breiðøx se vio obligada a mirar la mente para guiar a sus hombres en medio de los gritos, la confusión, la muerte y la niebla.

Visualizó en el campo de su mente las sagradas runas protectoras y las hizo girar alrededor de sus hombres, uno a uno, cara a cara, todo esto a la velocidad del relámpago, mientras destrozaba a hachazos la vanguardia del enemigo.

Ensangrentada hasta los pies, avanzando sobre los cadáveres que yacían en el suelo encharcado, vio volar en su mente a dos cuervos con noticias de la posición y las intenciones del enemigo, decapitó a un guerrero y levantando su cabeza le dió la orden de morder a su rey, con tal fuerza que lo escuchó gemir de espanto, y de un salto lo derribó con un terrible hachazo.

Poniendo un pie sobre el cuerpo abatido, vio en su mente la inconfundible luz de la victoria. Gritó a rabiar, y sus hombres, como locos, gritaron con ella.

Así fue dicho en una saga que las videntes cantan a gritos.

Ladies and gentlemen, and whoever else is still paying attention. It’s funny how quickly everything becomes meaningless to people. And I was probably insufferable.

Anyway, that’s done.

Let’s talk about something more interesting: how everything gets reduced to a number when you stare at it long enough. Because feelings are messy. Numbers? Numbers are fun. They just exist. So yeah, folks, with all that being said, this is the part where I start rating things. Don’t read too much into it. Or do. I don’t care.

“Hennessy whisky” / 17 It stands above the rest. Not because it’s perfect even though it is, but because it’s impossible to ignore.

The way a cigarette burns down / 14 Slow, I could say. Predictable. It just disappears while you’re not paying attention.

Video games / 11 Controlled chaos. You think you’re in charge, but you’re really just following rules someone else made.

Humans / 1 Inconsistent. Loud, very loud. Hard to measure. Always changing the rules mid-observation.

Empty streets after midnight / 15 Quiet enough to make you think for a while. Quiet enough to notice things you shouldn’t.

The moment right before something changes / 16 Everything is still possible. Nothing has failed yet.

That “almost asleep but not quite” feeling / 13 Soft. Suspended. Like drifting without falling.

The sound of rain on a window / 12 Constant. Soothing. It pretends to calm you while keeping you awake.

A locked door / 14 It doesn’t say anything. That’s what makes it interesting.

People laughing too loudly / 3 Overcompensation. Noise to cover something else.

The moment before you decide something / 14 Everything still exists. After that, something has to disappear.

Your own thoughts repeating / 11 Familiar. But familiarity doesn’t mean it’s correct.

Not knowing what comes next / 15 That’s when things feel real. Before they get explained away.

Being interrupted / 3 It breaks everything down. Not just of speech, of thought as well.

Too much attention / 7 It feels like pressure. Like being observed instead of seen.

Being misunderstood / 2 Not because it hurts. Because it wastes time correcting something that won’t change.

Typing something and deleting it / 9 Not failure. Just hesitation in physical form.

Seeing your name somewhere unexpected / 14 It pulls your attention immediately. Like it was placed there on purpose.

Late night notifications / 11 They interrupt the silence at the worst time. But that’s when they used to matter most.

3 AM itself / 15 It strips things down. No noise. No excuses. Just whatever is left.

Your thoughts echoing / 13 Repeated. Slightly different each time.

The silence before falling asleep / 16 The closest thing to nothing. And the hardest thing to stay in.

The urge to check your phone / 12 It feels urgent. It’s not. You’re just avoiding the fact that nothing new is there.

The smell of coffee in a quiet room / 11 Strong enough to notice. Not strong enough to fix anything.

“key” / 8 Only matters if something is locked.

“noise” / 8 Always there. Never the same.

Knowing what you should do but not doing it / 5 That’s where most people live.

Nothing making sense but you keep going / 15 Because stopping means thinking. And that’s worse.

This isn’t a scale of 10. It never was, Ten is too limited.

i better be off social media for a while

End of it. Not my problem anymore.

Tromgeroffel, toeters en bellen … het is verzamelen geblazen, want, Godot is op komst. Dinsdag 24/03/2026 is het zover, de parlementaire onderzoekscommissie belast met het onderzoek naar mogelijke disfuncties in het strafrechtelijk onderzoek 'Operatie Kelk' {POC Kelk} bespreekt en stemt over haar verslag en aanbevelingen.

• Om 12:00 komen de leden van de POC Kelk samen voor een “werkvergadering over het verslag van de commissie”, achter gesloten deuren, voor de 11de keer !
• Om 12:30 openen ze de deuren, en gaan ze over tot stemming over het geheel van de aanbevelingen.
• Om 15:00 en om 15:02: vervanging van één derde van de leden van de raad van bestuur: regeling van de werkzaamheden.“) zitten ze dan terug aan de orde van de dag in de commissie justitie.

Uit de agenda blijkt dat ze zichzelf niet direct plaats gunnen om te eten ? Nochtans zijn ze normaal altijd vlijtig met de “er wordt voor broodjes gezorgd”.

Belangrijker, zij geven zichzelf blijkbaar “maar” 1u30 de tijd voor het bespreken van het Verslag, de aanbevelingen en het stemmen daarover.

Voor de parlementaire onderzoekscommissie belast met het onderzoek naar de aanpak van seksueel misbruik, in de Kerk en daarbuiten, met inbegrip van de gerechtelijke behandeling, en de gevolgen op vandaag voor slachtoffers en samenleving {POC 2023} namen ze 4 uur tijd en organiseerden ze de bespreking en stemming in de plenaire.

De POC Kelk ging de “commissie van de waarheid” worden. Voor deze “waarheid” komt de POC Kelk dus niet in plenaire en voorziet maar 1u30. Gezien de korte tijd die wordt voorzien kan het rapport alvast niet lijvig zijn, en het is blijkbaar niet belangrijk genoeg om het in de plenaire te doen.

De agenda bevestigt niet direct dat er woensdag of donderdag over de POC Kelk in de kamer zal worden gestemd. Momenteel dus koffiedik kijken wanneer ze dat doen.

Tot nogtoe, welke “waarheid” voor deze “commissie van de waarheid”?

• drie keer uitstel, op 18/12/2025, op 19/06/2025 en op 12/12/2024;
• tijdens de hoorzittingen werden stellig herondervragingen beloofd en aangekondigd, die niet werden uitgevoerd;
• de “parlay” achter gesloten deuren tijdens 11 werkvergaderingen;
• klokkenluiders werden niet beschermd of ondersteund, noch werden maatregelen genomen tegen SLAPP's;

Is met andere woorden het serieu dat het parlement poogde te tonen bij de POC 2023 bij de POC Kelk ver te zoeken …

Zodra de stemming in de voltallige kamer zal zijn gebeurd publiceren wij, onder het universele recht op waarheid, de opname met het federaal parket dat het parlement niet wilde …

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alle informatie op deze site, zoals maar niet beperkt tot documenten en/of audio-opnames en/of video-opnames en/of foto's, is gemaakt en/of verzameld en gepubliceerd in het belang van gerechtigheid, samenleving en het Universele Recht op Waarheid

children for status is een onafhankelijk collectief dat schuldig verzuim door de Staat ten aanzien van seksueel geweld op minderjarigen en kinderhandel oplossingsgericht documenteert en aanklaagt

Adventurers

Character	Race	Class	Description
Arnulf Hetzer	Human	Thief level 1	A highly ambitious young man, aiming for great riches, awesome adventure, and not get broiled.
Ambros	Human	Cleric level 6	Follower of Aniu, Lord of Time.
Ignaeus	Elf	Fighter level 4 / magic-user level 5	A slightly weathered looking elf with dull blonde hair and chiseled features. Seeks wealth and knowledge.
Syd Grundy	Human	Ranger level 1	Tall, middle aged and scruffy looking man of the wilderness.
Thorinda Bung	Human	Monk level 1	She has blonde hair done up in a tight pony tail and wears light, loose suit.
Kenso San	Human	Fighter level 3	An arrogant and self-assured sellsword wandering Wilderlands to prove he can best anyone.
Tam o' Shanter	Human	Cleric level 3	A boisterous wine-lover of Losborst on a Great Crusade of the Grape.
Percy	Human	Fighter level 1	A career soldier dishonorably discharged due to his charismatic ways.

Blackmoon 20th, Spiritday

“Where shall we go to next?”

“There’s still stuff to explore under Castle Yukanthur, and Thorinda wants to go for a third knock-out in a row.”

And thus a party of eight adventurers set out once more for Castle Yukanthur, that old run just a watch northeast from Ironburg.

Environs were as before—overgrowth and moss—and adventurers had little patience for Syd's rubble inspection. Down and down the spiral staircase they went, with drunken Tam stumbling ahead. On and on, past the statue booming “WHO DARE ENTER THE CASTLE OF YUKANTHUR?!” and through the illusory wall.

Straight they went, and then left, and then into the chamber with four doors, and then through south west doors. They followed a long corridor until reaching a T-shaped junction splitting left and forward. To the left were doors, which the adventurers eventually forced open.

A ghastly sight!

A child dressed in chain shirt lying prostrate in the center of the large room. Besides it two pony-sized abominations lashing the child with their tentacles. Tubular bodies, a dozen of tentacles, disgusting slimy sheen.

Ignaeus cast Web and captured them all. While others fanned out, Arnulf approached the webbing and began stabbing one of the monsters. The abomination writhed and attempted to set itself free, but to no avail. It soon expired under the thief's cruelty. Encouraged, Ignaeus and Percy slayed the other one.

A locked chest, promptly smashed open—releasing a crunchy sound as it was struck—revealed a broken rat skeleton, six thousand copper pieces, and one thousand electrum pieces.

Adventurers carved a path through the web to reach the child. But it was no child! It was a male hobbit! He did not move and was unnaturally stiff.

“Must be paralysed.”

Party discussed at length what to do with him. Some were in favour of robbing him of his belongings and leaving him be. Others were in favour of at least leaving him in the corner of the room.

“Ugh... oooh... thank you for saving me. I am Bopo Oldhearth, and I am a warrior.”

He offered to join the party for a full share of treasure.

“A full share? For half a man?”

Hobbit left as the adventurers brutally ridiculed him.

Finding nothing else of interest, the party returned to the junction and explored further left, down another long corridor until they reached yet another t-shaped intersection. To the left was a winding corridor and to the right straight corridor terminating with bloated doors.

They chose the latter, bursting in like the great liberators they are. A volley of arrows hit them from darkness. Four penetrated Tam, contributing to his “drunken hedgehog” look. Thorinda the Lightbearer rushed in and illuminated the whole fifty by fifty chamber with her bullseye lantern.

Five pig faced orcs were crouching in the corner, shooting at adventurers.

Percy shot one dead. Others hacked the remaining four to death.

There was nothing of value nor interest in the room. Even the orcs hadn't had anything beyond their scimitars and short bows. Adventurers pushed onwards, through the doors opposite those they came through. This led them to another square room of equal size.

The walls were lined with smooth black stone that seemed to soften and dim the light. Four chest were arranged along the west wall. All four had broken padlocks and were entirely empty. Second from the south had a carving of stumpy, penile shape, under the lid.

Percy stood outside the whole time, worried that the whole chamber might be trapped. Once everyone else left the room through opposite doors he quickly ran up to rejoin them.

Another long, winding corridor.

“You know, long corridors like these usually have pit traps–”

Tam opined as he, Ignaeus, Ambros, and Percy fell through a pit trap at the bend of a corridor.

The quartet tumbled straight down, hitting a slide, then rolled and tumbled down the sharp slope. Roughed up, they emerged through a hole in the wall into yet another pit. For a brief moment they could see daylight way above them. Within a bat of an eye all four fell into ice-cold water. Current was strong and carried them on as they fought for air.

Unlike Ambros, Ignaeus, and Tam, Percy was lightly armoured. He remained composed in the face of adversity, and swam up, breaking the surface of water. This was an underground river and he was being carried toward cave wall! He pushed and swam, his muscles burning, until he reached the shore. He grabbed onto the jagged rocks and pulled himself up.

Two clerics and an elf were nowhere to be seen.

Percy looked around. Shy daylight shone through a hole in the ceiling, providing some illumination. He was in a large cave, bisected by an underground river. He could see there was some sort of exit on the other side of the cave. And there was a tunnel straight behind him, leading into darkness.

Veteran rummaged through his soaked belongings. A grappling hook and some rope. Exactly what he needed. Alas, even when he struck the opening in the ceiling his hook fell straight down. There was nothing he could anchor it to, at least not from where he stood.

His light sources survived, so he made good use of them to explore the dark tunnel behind him. Yet another cave, albeit slightly smaller. It connected to a much larger one, but access to it was cut of by the river. The current here was much stronger and Percy decided to backtrack instead.

He returned to the larger cave. Then he went to the far side. The river wasn't that wide, maybe some twenty feet or so, but the current was strong. He reasoned that he would have most time if he began swimming from the far side. That would mean least risk to get pulled under the rock.

Percy's plan worked as intended. He followed the ascending tunnel into a worked chamber, some twenty by twenty feet. There were single doors in the south east corner.

Percy listened at the door.

Then he tried to force them open.

He failed.

He tried again.

He failed again.

Then the door swung open.

⁂

Arnulf, Syd, Thorinda, and Kenso watched as their allies fell down the chute. They had no time to react nor to help them. Arnulf was the quickest, asking for some rope and light to descend after the unlucky four.

He clambered twenty feet down. Then he carefully slid down the slope. He poked his head through the opening. High above him was a circular opening, through which daylight shone. Down below him was darkness and sound of rushing water. He could also see a little bit of light—perhaps from torch or lantern. He tried shouting but no answer came back.

The thief returned and informed Kenso, Syd, and Thorinda.

“It must be the well!”

“Let's head there and drop down some rope!”

Indeed, the four rushed through the dungeon, ascended the stairs, and then through the ruined castle, through the woods, and towards the well.

“How much rope do we have?!”

⁂

Ambros sank like a sack or rocks. He tried to untie his plate mail. He found that very difficult while being rolled around in total darkness, his lungs burning with lack of oxygen. He tumbled along the river bed, scrapped and battered.

The situation was grim. The cleric didn't have much more to live. He wiggled his hips, he undulated his belly, he shook his shoulders—and the armour came off. With seconds to go, Ambros pushed himself off the floor, and exploded through the river.

He trashed around until he grabbed onto something solid. He clawed his way out. Then someone—or something—grabbed him by the heel and pulled him. The voice was ranting and quite audible through the noise of running water. But it was a friendly voice too. It was Tam. The clerics helped each other out.

⁂

Ignaeus fell almost face first. He dove into the chilly river, nearly hitting the bedrock in the process. He instinctively attempted to swim. It was difficult, but possible due to magical nature of his plate mail. He reached the surface just in time to take a healthy gulp of fresh air.

The river current was carrying him towards a cave wall at great speed. He outstretched his arms, grasping for something to hold to.

Success!

But not for long.

The current was to strong and it pulled him back in, sucking him through cold darkness. He tumbled and rolled, hitting stone and flesh, trying to swim.

He broke the water surface once more. He flailed around in total darkness, until he grabbed someone! He pulled himself up, and crawled upon something flat enough to rest on.

The voices were familiar—Ambros and Tam.

The soaked trio rested on a piece of dryish cave floor. Ignaeus cast Light on his person, illuminating the cave. It was some forty by fifty feet, bisected by the river. They were on a small piece of rock jutting out on the north side of the cave. Hewn corridor connected to the south side of the cave.

“Blargh! Water!” Tam roared as he took a tankard of ice cold, chilly, all natural, mountain water.

A rotted chest with three skeletons next to it were on the same piece of rock. One of the skeletons held a rusted shortsword. Chest contained five hundred gold pieces, a moldy red cloak, and a wand.

Tam took of his armour and hurled it across. Then he swam over, as did Ambros and Ignaeus. Following the corridor led them to a chamber some forty by thirty feet.

There was an open pit in the center, with rope hanging down. The rope was anchored by three iron pitons. Adventurers pulled up the rope and retrieved the pitons. Then they went through the south doors.

T-junction splitting left and right. They went left, then turned right, and then reached another junction. A horde of zombies grunted to their right. A pack of ravenous ghouls howled to their left. Ambros squeezed his gold gavel.

Newspaper by Lord Jubalon Flux.

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