Inbetweeners 43- Xalatra Questline Part 4- The Maw

Now that Bruce was inhabited by a lich/one of the most devout followers of Vecna, the group was free to proceed deeper underneath Sigil. It was here that things start to get... weird.

My notion of Sigil as existing outside of normal Euclidean geometry gets tricky to fully explain and develop a system for... so many times it came down to vibes for narrative flavor. But here we are getting close to one of the main engines that allows Sigil to function as it does—The Maw.

Sigil is constantly being reformed and remade. New city blocks are added, destroyed, or changed. No one knows exactly the scale of this, outside of the Lady of Pain of course. Different academics and scholars try to track it, but no one even knows how large the city is. Any map of the city is instantly made worthless, and the mere act of trying to map it is futile as the map itself will warp before your very eyes. This means that there are entire sections of the city that someone studying its layout may be unaware of. They could only know about half the city, or 10%, or 2%. Some hypothesize that the city is infinite and exists across all dimensions. While this is a more extreme hypothesis... no one knows for sure. But suffice to say, Sigil is in a constant state of flux.

As the players delved deeper underneath the city, they saw all the ways in which things were remade. The Gutworks had basic recycling, akin to how things are reprocessed in the real world, albeit with some magical/steampunk/body horror elements. Once they reached the Reconfiguring Channel, what they say was more akin to the Construct in the Matrix. Here entire city sections can be rapidly formed or dissolved. But, even this isn't large enough in scale for the Lady's needs. Sometimes entire versions of the city, timelines, etc must be recycled. And the Maw is the singular nexus of this recycling. The Maw doesn't just break down materials. It digests and reprocesses reality itself. Souls, time, identity, meaning... it all breaks down. And this is where Xalatra was headed.

Xalatra was powerful and intelligent enough to recognize her Far Realm afflication. She always knew it was a risk, but she thought it was a risk she could mitigate and address. However, like all intellectuals that study the Far Realm for too long, she underestimated its unending ability to corrupt. Whatever had taken ahold of her was too strong for traditional magical means to eliminate. Even Gods did not like addressing the Far Realm, and when they did it was usually through blunt means... burn out the outsiders. She needed something precise, something that could burn out the Far Realm corruption while keeping her intact. That is why she headed down this way and that is where the players followed.

Down beneath the Substructure Warrens the players encountered layer after layer of infrastructure. The lower they got, reality started to bleed together. Not only did the physical nature of their surroundings start to break down. But their memories started to be absorbed. Domilia reverted to the mind of a seven year old, having everything past that consumed. Thogg lost the ability to speak, and had to communicate with animal noises. The other players managed to resist the effects. They finally reached Xalatra. She had created a pocket dimension using glyphs that protected from the effects of the Maw. It resembled a classroom, tying in to her academic background. The feat she accomplished here should not be understated. The Maw breaks down everything... like a black hole, and she was able to get dangerous close and survive through her expert mastery of glyph magic. She was able to revert the afflicted characters back to their earlier forms, giving Domilia back her memories and age and Thogg back the ability to speak.

Xalatra explained that she came down here to cure her madness, to use her knowledge of glyph magic and the powers of the Maw to excise the Far Realm corruption. She succeeded, but in doing so her madness manifested as a separate creature. It now existed like a twisted clone of her, feeding on the accretion around the Maw. And, unfortunately for her, the Madness had taken all her magical ability, leaving her trapped in this classroom.

Defeating the Madness would cause the magic to revert back to the original, so she asks the players to please help her either kill or somehow neutralize her Madness. Once they do that, she will help cure their condition of traveling non-linearly.

So I left this encounter open ended to how the players wanted to deal with it. It could just be a powerful boss fight against a caster with 35 hit dice. She was a CR 20 with resistance to magic, 20th level spell slots, and a number of offensive abilities. Probably one of her most overpowered abilities is Unwilling Assimilation, which ahas the ability to deal up to 48d6 necrotic damage across six targets and heal her for that amount. The party had five players at that time, so it would be 40d6, but still that is an average damage of 140 necrotic damage if they all fail their con saves and she would heal for that amount, a little over half her hitpoint total. She had a number of reality and memory rewriting abilities along with traditional spells like Psychic Scream and Feeblemind which are always pretty devastating for a party to deal with.

Alternatively, the players could try to appeal to the rational nature still in her, particularly her desire to catalogue the cosmos. The players started by taking the combat approach, but Uzo quickly decided to abandon that. Instead, he told the group to follow his lead and take defensive positions, and he opted to drop his weapons and communicate with the madness. He absorbed several devastating magical attacks, but was healed by Domilia enough that he was able to survive until he made a breakthrough. He convinced the Madness that it had to jump into the Maw, thus ending it and returning Xalatra's magic to her.

From here, Xalatra covered the players with magical glyphs and instructed them to jump into the Maw. While this would normally be an absolute form of suicide, she assured them that these glyphs would allow their individual consciousnesses to reform, but with the issue of how they travel outside of Sigil corrected. The group did this, and trigger a sort of 2001 a Space Oddyssey ending acid trip sequence as they melted and reformed. This wasn't the first time they died though, so no biggie.

In the aftermath the players had a new ally, Xalatra, and they were able to travel normally outside of Sigil. This meant that they would be able to continue the Lady of Pain's work. Also... they didn't have to deal with the inconvenience of only being able to move through the network of rooms that had most certainly been catalogued and was now actively monitored by the Protectors of the Weave.

Most interestingly was Xalatra's new position. Almost all sentient beings were vanishingly insigificant to the Lady of Pain... but Xalatra caught her attention. The industry she showed seeking out the Maw to address her corruption, her ability to survive and triumph in the situation, plus her knowledge of the planes and how they worked put her a step above her contemporaries. The Lady of Pain decided that Xalatra could be of use to her, and offered her a position that few mortals ever achieved... become a mouthpiece for the Lady. Xalatra accepted almost immediately, her ultimate goal is knowledge and the Lady has potentially more than any other being in existence, save maybe Primus. This level of unfettered access was... beyond the pale.

What this meant logistically for the players going forward was that they rarely met with the Lady of Pain directly. Instead now, if they needed to communicate with her or receive instructions, it would be through Xalatra. This came with a number of benefits. First and foremost, the group avoided the... pain associated with looking upon or hearing the Lady of Pain, which tended to open up cuts across their body. Secondly, the Lady of Pain did not tolerate her attention being wasted, and in such was pretty sparing with directly interacting with mortals. Xalatra though, as a mouthpiece, is far more willing to directly communicate with the players and could determine on her own if their queries or concerns were worthy of the Lady's time. She would remain an important NPC for the remainder of the campaign (which is, as the time of writing this, in its final stages).

In terms of direct servants of the Lady of Pain at the level of Xalatra, the only other mortals who had reached this level were the Renegade (one of the Interloper's first “participants”) and his power has reached a level where he really isn't mortal. More on him later. Also the Spider Lady develops an association with the Lady but she is a four dimensional being from the Far Realm so that doesn't' really count. Lastly, in the later stages of the campaign, Hexana, member of the Resplendent Six (who will be introduced in a post soon) ends up serving her as well. And thus the Xalatra questline ends. In future posts we will have:

-The Resplendent Six (the premier hero group in this universe) -Zane and Mammon strike back -The Return to the Torment -Freeing the Interloper... and much much more

Too bad the programmers couldn't teach it to write a proper Haiku. Most people are going to say, “Why does it matter?” It matters because it is the perfect example of everything wrong with AI. I find it extremely annoying and outright depressing that Google couldn't get that one little thing right.

It's also a perfect example of everything wrong with our society right now. To be such a big event, it's also disrespectful as fuck. Do your bloody homework!

If they can't be bothered to get something so small correct, (and let's face it, they probably don't even realize it) what else are they confidently congratulating themselves for that is fundamentally incorrect?

The nightmares will be fun tonight. 🙄

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

In Summary: * This has been another quiet Sunday spent at home, with both me and the wife making little discoveries as we continue unpacking and organizing, finding favorite things. That's been fun.

Very much into the night meds and night prayers part of the evening now, I'm looking forward to an earlier bedtime tonight. Tomorrow is Monday and I'll want to be up early fixing coffee, etc. It'll be good to be back in the regular Monday through Friday routine.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 218.15 lbs. * bp= no readings taken today

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 04:30 – snacking on m&m chocolate candies * 08:25 – ½ pb&j sandwich * 09:30 – garden salad * 10:05 – cheesecake * 13:30 – pork and vegetable stew, white rice, ice cream

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 03:00 – wake * 05:25 – bank accounts activity monitored * 05:45 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, take daily meds, unpack, organize, and nap * 10:00 – listening to Countdown to Kickoff on the Pittsburgh Steelers Audio Network * 12:00 – listening to the radio call of the Steelers / Browns game broadcast over Pittsburgh's 102.5 DVE FM * 15:08 – and the Steelers win, 27 to 6. * 15:25 – now listening to the KC Chiefs vs the Denver Broncos.

Chess: * 11:30 – moved in all pending CC games

I wanted to write this blog post earlier in October but got hung up with work last month. For some reason, work has been crazy lately. So Ed Zitron, Paul from Paul's Hardware, Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus and others beat me to this topic, and Vex, a YouTuber, does a great job explaining it too. Just as I was finishing this, Brennan published I Am Relentless and Undaunted. Go read it. It's worth your time.

So I don't have to make this a long post, sorry, just kidding, it will be very long. I have to get this off my chest and vent. I believe there's a conspiracy here, and it deserves some attention.

I'm putting on my tinfoil hat for this one.

I try not to be a conspiracy theorist, but come on. How can you look at what's happening and not think these shortages and high component prices are being deliberately created? At the heart of it, I believe, is Nvidia and its bottom line. As we've learned from Ed Zitron and Business Insider's reporting, Amazon is sitting on warehouses full of GPUs, and by extension, I suspect there's memory and storage equipment sitting around too. Why? Because some of these data centers aren't ready, and others don't have enough electrical power to operate the equipment. Microsoft has acknowledged similar problems and has pulled back from some planned data center projects. So why are these companies buying billions of dollars in GPUs that could be outdated by the time they're installed?

I have a theory.

I believe Nvidia and major memory manufacturers Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron may be pressuring companies to take delivery of equipment long before their data centers are ready. Ed Zitron makes the same case, calling it channel stuffing.^[1] They're also prioritizing enterprise AI hardware and leaving consumers fighting over whatever manufacturing capacity is left. I suspect something similar is happening with storage manufacturers like Western Digital, Toshiba, and Seagate.

Look at Micron. After nearly 30 years, it discontinued its Crucial consumer memory and storage business in February 2026. Not because consumers stopped buying RAM and SSDs, but because it wanted to concentrate on larger, more profitable customers.^[2] These companies are making deliberate production decisions, and they know the consequences. Consumers are left paying considerably more for RAM, storage, and graphics cards. Apparently, if you want to upgrade your computer, you might have to sell a kidney to afford it. Meanwhile, these enterprise customers can afford to buy the whole body. And we're supposed to believe there's nothing the manufacturers can do about it. Wink, wink.

If a data center isn't coming online for another two years, why does it need billions of dollars in equipment sitting in warehouses today? Why not schedule deliveries six to nine months before it's ready, or even a year if necessary? I understand semiconductor manufacturing is complicated, but surely these companies can plan for enterprise demand while maintaining reasonable consumer production.

Instead, we're watching this enormous circle of financing, hardware purchases, and advance commitments. Nvidia is also investing in AI companies and helping finance infrastructure that will purchase its own products. Are these enterprise customers being told to take delivery now or risk losing their place in line? We're not forcing anybody to buy anything. We're just making sure you'll have the hardware when you eventually need it. Wink, wink.

And before anyone tells me these companies would never manipulate a market, let's remember some history. Remember Archer Daniels Midland, better known as ADM? In the 1990s, ADM and competing manufacturers were caught secretly fixing prices and dividing up sales of lysine, an additive used in animal feed. ADM pleaded guilty and paid a $100 million criminal fine covering both lysine and a separate citric acid conspiracy. An insider working with the FBI helped expose what was happening.^[3] Samsung and Hynix, now SK Hynix, have already pleaded guilty to fixing DRAM prices. Samsung paid a $300 million criminal fine, and Hynix paid $185 million. Executives also went to prison.^[4] So we're supposed to forget that history and accept that today's shortages are entirely unavoidable? Maybe these companies are making independent decisions. Maybe everything is perfectly legal. But I suspect some learned quite a bit from their previous encounters with antitrust regulators.

Nvidia isn't stopping with GPUs. It invested $5 billion in Intel, entered into partnerships across the industry, and has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, one of the biggest platforms for distributing open AI models. The U.S. Justice Department is already asking questions about that deal.^[5] Nvidia says Hugging Face will remain open to competing hardware. I hope that's true, but I have to wonder how much of the AI industry Nvidia intends to influence. Now look at consumer graphics cards. Nvidia already dominates the market, AMD has pulled back from competing at the very high end, and Intel is putting considerable attention into professional AI graphics hardware. Maybe all this is just a coincidence, but consumers are certainly getting fewer choices at the high end, both price-wise and hardware-wise, with the rumored end of the RTX 5090, which Nvidia denies. And it's not just the 5090. The RTX 5080, which launched at $999, now has listings for $2,000 or more, and Nvidia's own store has quietly pulled it too.^[6] Even Intel's Arc Pro B70, originally priced under $1,000, has appeared at prices exceeding $2,000.^[7] AMD cards haven't escaped the increases either.^[8] These price increases are happening at every rung of the ladder. How is the average consumer supposed to afford this stuff anymore?

I wonder whether we're slowly being pushed toward a future where ordinary consumers aren't expected to own powerful computers anymore. Instead, we're expected to rent computing power from somebody else's data center. Just when I thought this couldn't get any more ridiculous, Sam Altman of OpenAI said something recently that really bothered me. During an interview on the Cheeky Pint podcast, Altman argued that it's “quite terrible” for people to have so much of the world's limited DRAM in personal computers, supposedly being used only 5% of the time. He believes cloud data centers can make better use of that memory.^[9] Really, Sam? Paul from Paul's Hardware had the perfect answer in a recent video: “I feel the same way about Sam's bank account. He's not using all that money all the time, so it should definitely be reallocated to people who will make better use of it.” I heard that and almost fell over laughing, because it's a very apt comparison. Gamers Nexus covered the same interview in its latest HW News episode, and Steve Burke summed it up: “Sam is saying the quiet part out loud.”

The CEO of one of the largest AI companies, whose industry is buying enormous amounts of memory and hardware, suggesting that consumers having RAM in their own computers is an inefficient use of resources. Apparently, it's perfectly fine for billions of dollars in GPUs to sit in warehouses waiting for electricity, but heaven forbid I have 32 or 64 GB of RAM in my own computer that isn't being used every second of the day. What arrogance. My computer belongs to me. I bought it with my own money, and I should be able to use it whenever and however I want. The attitude behind his comments shows an utter lack of understanding of ordinary people. It's a Marie Antoinette, “let them eat cake” moment.

Want to run powerful AI? Subscribe to a cloud service. Want to play games? There's GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and other services. Why sell consumers powerful hardware when companies can sell it to enterprise customers and charge consumers for ongoing access? In other words, a subscription. Or as Brennan put it, we “will be compelled to rent and lease and borrow.” And look, everybody has agreements with everybody else, so obviously we're encouraging competition. Wink, wink.

Even Apple, with its enormous balance sheet and once-great ability to dictate terms to suppliers, is having problems with rising memory and storage costs.^[10] And Samsung? It competes directly with Apple in smartphones and makes many of the components that go into them. You would think Samsung would have a tremendous advantage right now. But it's chasing the same enterprise AI money, even as higher component costs hurt its own consumer products.^[11]

Apparently, even Macs aren't safe from this AI buying frenzy. According to The Information, OpenAI has purchased tens of thousands of Mac minis and Mac Studios for AI workloads, while Anthropic is reportedly renting Mac minis through Amazon. These are computers meant for consumers, independent developers, and small businesses.^[12]

So now even the computers people could use as alternatives to Nvidia hardware are being purchased in enormous quantities by AI companies. They're all riding this cash cow for everything it's worth. But what happens when the AI financial bubble finally bursts?

Let me make something clear. I don't believe AI itself is going to collapse. I believe demand will continue growing, whether that's local AI or cloud and frontier AI, because AI is useful technology. What I think will collapse is the financial house of cards being built around it. Eventually, Wall Street and private investors are going to demand returns that justify the billions, no trillions at this point being spent on GPUs, memory, storage, and data centers. Some companies won't be able to meet their obligations. Others may be acquired, restructured, or go bankrupt.

And what happens to all that expensive enterprise hardware when the spending slows down or data centers start replacing equipment? I hope consumers get to buy it for pennies on the dollar. If manufacturers want to concentrate on HBM and enterprise hardware, maybe we consumers should learn how to adapt that equipment for our own needs. I'm not talking about removing HBM chips and sticking them into ordinary motherboards. I'm talking about buying retired enterprise GPUs with their memory already attached and adapting them for personal use. Some have 80 GB, 192 GB, or more of high-bandwidth memory. Imagine what we could do with that for local AI. Sure, some will need special cooling, adapters, power supplies, and software support. But people are already figuring this stuff out. Look at what Lon Seidman did with this Tesla V100. Maybe equipment these companies consider obsolete will be perfectly good for the rest of us. And maybe we can stop buying so much new hardware directly from the companies that pushed us aside. Because brand loyalty used to mean something to me. I had it for years. But seeing how these companies treat ordinary consumers is changing my thinking.

Look at Microsoft. After years of complaints about Windows 11, it's finally emphasizing performance, reliability, and improving the user experience. Meanwhile, Linux has become a more practical alternative for gamers, and Macs are attracting people frustrated with Windows. I can't prove this caused Microsoft's changes, but I'd certainly think twice about taking consumers for granted when they have alternatives if I were Microsoft.^[13]

And that's something Nvidia, Samsung, Micron, AMD, Intel, and the others ought to consider. Consumers helped build these companies. They shouldn't assume we'll automatically come back when the enterprise money slows down. Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I think AI is great technology, and I want to see it succeed. I actually like OpenAI and what it has made available to ordinary people. That doesn't mean I agree with everything its leadership says or does, especially Altman's comments about RAM.

But I also believe the AI industry has some wrongs to make right. A tremendous amount of copyrighted material has been used to train AI systems, often without the creators' knowledge or permission. You can't simply tell an AI model to unlearn it, but the companies that used people's work without permission should compensate them.

And the same goes for hardware manufacturers. They're making production decisions that are creating or worsening scarcity for ordinary consumers, then expecting us to accept the resulting prices as though nothing could have been done differently. When the financial bubble eventually bursts, I hope we consumers remember who treated us as valued customers and who decided we weren't profitable enough to matter anymore.

Maybe my tinfoil hat is getting a little tight.

But I don't think I'm imagining the consequences of what's happening right in front of us. This is all one big circle of money, financing, hardware, and companies making deals with one another. I'm not against AI. I'm not against companies making money. But I am against consumers being pushed aside while these companies chase profits that may not be sustainable.

The technology isn't the problem. The way the industry is financing it, controlling it, and treating the rest of us is.

And that circle needs to be broken.

---

Sources

1. Ed Zitron, Where's Your Ed At, October 20, 2026: AI Had Better Work Out.

   ↩

2. Micron announces its exit from the Crucial consumer business, December 3, 2025.

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3. U.S. Department of Justice, ADM criminal antitrust case, October 15, 1996.

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4. U.S. Department of Justice: Samsung DRAM price-fixing case and Hynix DRAM price-fixing case.

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5. CNBC, October 28, 2026: DOJ questions Nvidia's $12.9 billion Hugging Face deal.

   ↩

6. Tom's Hardware, October 30, 2026: Nvidia store quietly pulls the RTX 5080 following RTX 5090 removal. Also Gamers Nexus's coverage.

   ↩

7. VideoCardz, October 2026: Intel Arc Pro B70 prices more than double in US, now listed for up to $2,400.

   ↩

8. TechPowerUp, October 30, 2026: AMD reportedly plans another Radeon GPU and GDDR6 kit price hike for November.

   ↩

9. Tom's Hardware, October 30, 2026: Sam Altman on consumer RAM. Also The Verge's reporting.

   ↩

10. MacRumors, September 17, 2026: Apple reportedly accepts even higher RAM and storage prices in 2027.

    ↩

11. CNET, October 1, 2026: Samsung raises prices by $100 on most Galaxy S26 phones.

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12. Yahoo Tech, August 31, 2026: Blame AI companies for Mac mini and Mac Studio shortage, reporting The Information's story.

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13. Microsoft, October 15, 2026: What's new in Windows 11.

    ↩

#hardware #opinion #technology

A man named Williams travels into the future but returns without any memories of his experience, despite having prepared to document it.

---

Under 1-minute read.

Before Williams went into the future he bought a camera and a tape recording-machine and learned shorthand. That night, when all was ready, we made coffee and put out brandy and glasses against his return.

“Good-bye,” I said. “Don’t stay too long.”

“I won’t,” he answered.

I watched him carefully, and he hardly flickered. He must have made a perfect landing on the very second he had taken off from.

He seemed not a day older; we had expected he might spend several years away.

“Well?”

“Well,” said he, “let’s have some coffee.”

I poured it out, hardly able to contain my impatience. As I gave it to him I said again, “Well?”

“Well, the thing is, I can’t remember.

“Can’t remember? Not a thing?”

He thought for a moment and answered sadly, “Not a thing.”

“But your notes? The camera? The recording-machine?”

The notebook was empty, the indicator of the camera rested at “1” where we had set it, the tape was not even loaded into the recording-machine.

“But good heavens,” I protested, “why? How did it happen? Can you remember nothing at all?”

“I can remember only one thing.”

“What was that?”

“I was shown everything, and I was given the choice whether I should remember it or not after I got back.”

“And you chose not to? But what an extraordinary thing to—”

“Isn’t it?” he said. “One can’t help wondering why.”

Image: Kate Jewell (CC BY-SA 2.0)

#hiltonyoung

Publicat la 17 noiembrie 2017

Dollar Bill Blues, în interpretarea lui Townes Van Zandt, și atmosfera aparent calmă din Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie), în ciuda acțiunii tensionate, mă atrag ca un magnet. Le regăsesc adesea în recomandările YouTube, la secțiunea Listen Again.

Mai demult, mi se întâmpla același lucru cu Extreme Ways (Moby), după ce văzusem The Bourne Identity. Numai că acolo lucrurile se desfășoară într-un ritm cu totul diferit. Acțiunea are viteză, nu glumă! Cel puțin în comparație cu dramele pe care obișnuiesc să le urmăresc.

Together We Will Live Forever, Death Is the Road to Awe, Stay With Me și Xibalba, toate compuse de Clint Mansell pentru coloana sonoră a filmului The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky), m-au condus către un comentariu interesant de pe YouTube.

Autorul lui ne îndemna să nu ne mai îngrijorăm atât pentru viitor și să nu rămânem ancorați în trecut. Să trăim ziua de astăzi, pentru că ea este singura care contează cu adevărat.

Mi-am amintit de un pasaj din Seize the Day, romanul lui Saul Bellow, în care Dr. Tamkin vorbește despre trecut, viitor și importanța prezentului. Ideea este aproape aceeași: trecutul nu ne mai poate ajuta, viitorul ne aduce neliniști, iar singurul moment pe care îl putem trăi cu adevărat este prezentul. Here and now. Seize the day.

Acesta este momentul prezent. Trecutul nu ne folosește la nimic. Viitorul e plin de neliniște. Numai prezentul este real – clipa. Trăiește-ți clipa.


Comentariul făcea trimitere la Kabbalah și la o interesantă teorie despre dualitatea spațio-temporală.

Despre dualitate aș putea spune câte ceva, cel puțin dintr-o perspectivă științifică. Despre Kabbalah, însă, nu știu aproape nimic. Cel puțin deocamdată.

Now I am listening to Together We Will Live Forever.

1. Before, After, Alone by Emma Newman (Planetfall #4.5) by Emma Newman, 161p: This is a short stories collection from the Planetfall series. The stories dive a bit deeper into some characters, giving us some snippets of what they've been up to after events in the books, or within the book’s timeline. But the story that stayed with me the most was “Albert and the Kraken” which doesn't have any of the book’s characters in it.

2. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher, 259p: I enjoyed the found family dynamic in this one and the updated fairy tale vibes. There were some interesting bits, like the scene with the Toothdancer and also Agnes, the fairy Godmother, was great. The challenges in the story were not that hard, and that made the plot very predictable. But overall, it was a fun read, it feels like a cozy spooky read.

3. Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3) by Elizabeth Hoyt, 393p: I did not like this book. The whole plot with the orphan baby and Silence being caught in this forced proximity situation with the pirate hero Mickey O'Connor did not work for me at all. I guess I didn't expect it to have so many sad backstories, from both Mickey and Silence. There is murder and drama and a bit of mystery. I kept reading because I wanted to know who was the Ghost of St Giles, which is revealed at the end. Not sure I will continue the series.

4. Red Team Blues (The Martin Hench Novels #1) by Cory Doctorow, 216p: This was my first fiction book from Cory Doctorow, and I enjoyed it! I struggled a bit with the whole cryptocurrency techno jargon, but I think I got the overall concept. I liked the older main character, Martin Hench, who is a forensic accountant with expertise in money laundering and he knows all the Silicon Valley dirty secrets. I think it was a great techno-thriller that got me out of my comfort zone. I was not ready for a gruesome murder scene in the story, but that did not scared me away. I want to read to the next in the series.

5. How to Focus (Mindfulness Essentials) by Thích Nhất Hạnh, 130p: This book works best with previous knowledge about Buddhism mindfulness. It has super short chapters presenting concepts of meditation and concentration, but it does not take too much time explaining these concepts. There are nice nuggets of wisdom that made me smile. It was nice as a refresher of mindfulness and concentration techniques, but it might be hard to follow without previous knowledge.

#readinglist #books #reading

Je passe la grande majorité de mon temps à travailler. Je ne suis plus sur les réseaux, je ne regarde plus les nouvelles. Je suis, en quelque sorte, hors du monde.

Je ne me compare qu’à moi-même. Je ne vois le monde qu’à travers le prisme que je construis. Je suis en dehors de la horde et même si à première vue cela peut sembler effrayant, cela a ses bienfaits.

À quel moment la solitude devient-elle une souffrance ? La limite n’est pas très claire pour moi.

Lorsque notre vie est en accord avec nos valeurs ? Quand nous arrivons à voir le ciel plutôt que la fange ? Quand notre pourquoi dépasse notre personne ?

J’ai l’opportunité d’avoir un impact sur 24 enfants. Tous les ans. C’est une responsabilité et un honneur incroyable quand on prend un peu de recul.

C’est peut-être ça : vivre en accord avec son moi profond.

Je n’y suis pas encore. Mais j’y travaille.

Today's Game of Choice.

Unless I'm called away, I intend to follow the (5-2) Cleveland Browns vs the (5-2) Pittsburgh Steelers NFL game, with its scheduled start time of Noon Central Time. Go Steelers!

And the adventure continues.

Prayerfully reading the Mass Propers for today, 11/01/2026, All Saints Day.

And the adventure continues.

Stay entertained thanks to our Weekly Tracker giving you next week's Anticipated Movies & Shows, Most Watched & Returning Favorites, and Shows Changes & Popular Trailers.

Anticipated Movies

• ☆ Godzilla Minus Zero
• The Last Temptation of Becky
• Ramayana: Rise of a Legend
• Wild Horse Nine
• Nightborn
• The Cat in the Hat
• I Play Rocky
• Club Kid

Anticipated Shows

• Bass X Machina
• ☆ The Remarried Empress
• The Greatest
• Campus Drivers

Returing Favorites

• The Gilded Age — Season 4
• St. Denis Medical — Season 3
• QI — Season 24
• Stick — Season 2
• All's Fair — Season 2
• ☆ Black Doves — Season 2
• Sweetpea — Season 2
• The Assassin — Season 2
• The Institute — Season 2

Trending Shows Status Changes

• Dead-End Job — Returning Series → Ended
• Bleach — Returning Series → Ended
• The One About Matthew Perry — Returning Series → Ended
• You Maniac — Returning Series → Ended

Most Watched Movies this Week

• new The Dog Stars
• -1 Spider-Man: Brand New Day
• new Verity
• new Ali G: Who Iz I?
• -2 Buddy
• new The Cycle
• -5 Tenzing
• new Clayface
• -5 Hope
• -5 Practical Magic 2

Most Watched Shows this Week

• = VisionQuest
• = MobLand
• +3 Tulsa King
• new South Park
• +2 Dark Matter
• -3 Slow Horses
• new The Terminal List
• new Lupin
• -1 Marshals
• -6 Crystal Lake

Popular Trailers

• history is about to begin. — The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
• Tricks and treats that can’t be beat. — The Cat in the Hat
• Anything for her. — Clayface
• Season 7 Episode 2 Teaser — Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir
• Star-studded. Crafted to perfection. — Wicker
• Wicked Fun — Hexed
• Dark Magic Awaits This Halloween. — Wildwood
• Devil on His Shoulder — VisionQuest
• In Cinemas Now — The Social Reckoning
• The worst cellmate ever has arrived. — Ghost in the Cell

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Hi, I’m Kevin 👋. Product Manager at Trakt and creator of Rippple. If you’d like to support what I'm building, you can download Rippple for Trakt, explore the open source project, or go Trakt VIP.

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Mensjes op leeftijd Wachten stipt tot negen uur Gratis met de trein.

Friends and strangers!

Through November I am hosting the RPG Blog Carnival, and I would like to invite you to contribute!

The theme is Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, and your contributions can be anything related to it, from your procedures and practices for creating and running them to random tables for generating and populating them to actual adventuring sites.

In OD&D Gary and Dave describe underworld and wilderness as places of adventure, peril, and treasure:

... the referee must draw out a minimum of half a dozen maps of the levels of his “underworld,” people them with monsters of various horrid aspect, distribute treasures accordingly, and note the location of the latter two on keys, each corresponding to the appropriate level. ... When this task is completed the participants can then be allowed to make their first descent into the dungeons beneath the “huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses.” ...

Before it is possible to conduct a campaign of adventures in the mazey dungeons, it is necessary for the referee to sit down with pencil in hand and draw these labyrinths on graph paper. ... In laying out your dungeons keep in mind that downward (and upward) mobility is desirable, for players will not find a game enjoyable which confines them too much. On the other hand unusual areas and rich treasures should be relatively difficult to locate, and access must be limited. The layout of a level will affect the route most often followed by players. Observation of the most frequently used passages and explored rooms will guide the referee in preparation of successive levels, which, of course, should be progressively more dangerous and difficult.

The so-called Wilderness really consists of unexplored land, cities and castles, not to mention the area immediately surrounding the castle (ruined or otherwise) which housed the dungeons. The referee must do several things in order to conduct wilderness adventure games. First, he must have a ground level map of his dungeons, a map of the terrain immediately surrounding this, and finally a map of the town or village closest to the dungeons (where adventurers will be most likely to base themselves).

The theme is quite broad, and I encourage you to focus on gameable contributions—ideally something from or for your table that others could benefit from as well.

Simply share the link to your contribution (e.g. a blog post) in the comments below, and I will include it in the summary post at the end of the month.

I plan to write about how I roll up small random sites for sandbox play, from the resources I use to how I shape the site to how I then document and use it.

Fight on!

P.S. If you don't have a blog, but would still like to participate then you can either send me your contribution via email or comment below.

#RPGBlogCarnival #OSR #Resource

⚓️ Novemberinsel 

Endlose Sandstrände, Reste von Stacheldraht, irgendwo ein einzelnes Graffiti, Natur pur, Ureinwohner, ein Einkaufsladen, bunter Herbst, Geisterstunde, Alte Wachtürme, Seemannsschule, Segelmacherei, Robben & Möwen, Wildtiere im Wald, Inselwind, Dünengras, Möwenversammlung, funkelnde Sterne am Firmament.

🐚 Strandgut

Im Herbst sieht der selbe Weg anders aus als im Frühjahr oder im Sommer. Ein vertrauter, oft begangener Pfad erscheint wie neu. Immer wieder. Mit jedem Wechsel der Jahreszeit. Aus der vertrauten Ansicht wird eine neue. Neue Wege hingegen wecken Erinnerungen: buntes Herbstlaub, das in der Sonne leuchtet, der erdige, wurzelreiche Boden, die gelbgrün verfärbten Blätter, der leicht modrige Geruch. Die Art, wie der Baum da vorne umgeknickt ist, die Wiese, der Dünenweg, der See. Und doch weiß ich nicht, was kommt. Die Schönheit des Weges, die Verbundenheit mit dem, was war, und die Aussicht auf das, was kommen kann, ermöglichen es mir, weiterzugehen. Der neue Weg verbindet Vergangenheit und Zukunft. 

📖 Gelesen – gesehen – gehört

Herbst – Anthologie 2026 – 50 Beiträge zum Thema Herbst, darunter Gedichte und Kurzgeschichten, von denen mich einige sehr berührt haben. Einen Beitrag habe ich geschrieben.

Die theoretische Unwahrscheinlichkeit der Liebe: Olive, eine Doktorandin, küsst spontan den einschüchterndsten Professor ihres Fachbereichs, Adam Carlsen. Ihr gemeinsames Bedürfnis nach einer Scheinbeziehung wird zum chemischen Experiment, das womöglich die Formel für die Liebe liefert. Eine Verfilmung nach dem Roman von Ali Hazelwood: The Love Hypothesis 

Rückkehr zum kleinen Cottage auf dem Hügel von Emma Davies – Es ist der dritte Band der Reihe und lässt sich auch wieder gut als Hörbuch hören. Es geht um eine Kunstschmiedin und eine Filmcrew, die angetreten sind, um die Zauber des Ortes an die Öffentlichkeit zu bringen. Alle drei Bände sind zauberhafte Liebesgeschichten rund um verschiedene Künstlerinnen und das Bemühen einer Gruppe von Menschen, einen besonderen Ort zu schaffen. 

☕️ Ein letztes Wort

Alle diese Dinge sind ein Neubeginn. Aber kein Ende. Das Zuvor kann in ihnen weiterleben.

Kyra Groh

How the fuck does she know? actually, let me explain. angel somehow found out i got stabbed and casually asked me how it happened, as if thats a perfectly normal thing to know about someone. but seriously, how the fuck did she even find out? that’s what i’ve been confused about. i dont remember telling her, and im not sure who else wouldve told her. i must’ve missed the meeting where everyone was briefed on my business. but you know what? she still doesnt know how it happened. or where, for that matter. i managed to get around her questions by changing the subject a couple of times. problem solved. well, maybe. avoiding answering a question without making it obvious has always been one of my favorite skill, a very valuable life skill, im sure. not one they’ll teach you anywhere. Oh, and before you get too comfortable, no. im not telling you either. i know how this works. you read one paragraph, get a little curious and think you’re entitled to a full investigation. whats next? an interview? a little documentary? get a detective involved while we’re at it. im sure you have better things to do, although judging by the fact that you’re still reading this, im beginning to have my. doubts. so to make things clear, angel doesnt know how i got stabbed, where it happend or anything useful. you dont know either. and thats probably how things are going to stay. i would apologize but you’re getting too much in my business. About yesterday and me regretting a matter, i dont regret it anymore. maybe i will later on who knows. im not going to complain about that yet. i dont know how things are going to go from here. i really dont. im not going to pretend i have everything figured out because i dont. but i hope whatever happens next is better. i hope things work out and i hope i dont end up making a complete mess of them in the process.

Anyway, thats all for today, i dont really know what else to say. theres a lot in my head, im getting tired listening to my own thoughts. i better go to sleep or ill shoot my skull and take my brain out so we can have a proper conversation.

Sincerely, Boo boo, no story for you to investigate.